FAR-RIGHT INSANITY: THEN AND NOW

It is easy to think that lying, irresponsible, egomanaical far-right extremist formentors of fiction like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are a relatively new phenomenon in American culture and politics. But that supposition is not at all true.

Our penchant for free speech and the free exchange of ideas has made the United States unique in the history of the world. We have produced profound, noble, hopeful, unifying, and forward-looking thinkers like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, to name but a few, whose ideas and principles have inspired millions and are quoted and held in high esteem all across the globe to this day. Theirs has been a language of universality, optimism, equal opportunity, and inclusiveness. It has provided great and lasting food for thought for the whole world.

But we have also produced shallow preachers of hatred, fear, mistrust, division, and backward-looking thinking. Modern far-right conservatives and Republicans like Beck, Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Mivchelle Malkin, Dick and Ann Cheney, John Boehner, Sarah Palin, Pete Hoekstra, and Michele Bachmann fit into this category. They wallow in humankind's baser instincts of narcissim, nervousness, and self-promotion. Such shallowness does little to inspire others and, as such, these people will have little wide or lasting impact on humanity. Theirs has been the language of individuality, pessimism, skepticism, dishonesty, and exclusivity. Having little to offer others, it will be deservedly forgotten in the long run.

We are currently being bombarded by non-stop barrages of anti-Obama and anti-progressive thought from far-right extremists, many of whom have already been mentioned above. There is a common thread of underlying racism, hatred, fear, mistrust, and outright falsehood in their pronouncements. From the Cheney duo's accusations of the President's "dithering" on Afghanistan (thereby allegedly placing the country in dire jeopardy), to Sarah Palin's ridiculous claims that he "pals around with domestic terrorists" and his health care reform agenda will establish "death panels", to Glenn Beck's patently absurd charge that he is a "racist" and "hates white culture", to teabaggers' fears that our taxes will skyrocket, to Birthers' assertions that he wasn't born here and is not a citizen (or he is actually an America-hating Muslim), to Charles Grassley's statement that health care reform will "throw grandma under the bus", to Rush Limbaugh's (and many others')litanies that Obama's stimulus plan and health care initiatives are "socialistic" - all of these claims and insinuations are preposterous.

It has long been a trait of the far-right to exaggerate, distort, lie, and attack. Fr. Coughlin warned that FDR's New Deal would destroy capitalism. Didn't happen; in fact, his measures SAVED capitalism. Joie McCarthy had people believing that communists were everywhere and that Democrats were aiding and abetting them. Communists WEREN'T everywhere, and we ended up defeating them. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush told us regulation of business was bad and that "government isn't the solution, it's the problem." Yet when government regulation was lifted on energy speculators and mortgage bankers, gasoline shot up to $4 per gallon and the economy nearly went into another Great Depression.

The far-right has nothing to offer this country or the world by preaching fear, laissez-faire economics, ultra-conservative religion, and outright lies.

If you look at the illustration below, which I obtained from a recent post on the superb blog Down With Tyranny, you'll see it is a hate sheet circulated about President Kennedy just before his assassination in 1963. He, just like President Obama, was also the target of unfounded, lying, hateful rumors. There was no internet in those days, and no cable or satellite TV, so there was a far more miniscule venue for the far-right to preach its lies and hatred. Substitute the words "terrorists" or "Muslims" for the word "communist", and you'll see this is a perfect proof of the existence of far-right insanity: then AND now. The language used is eerily similar to what we see today, as is the method of presenting unsubstantiated accusations designed to alarm people. A look at some of the many far-fetched and inaccurate claims against Kennedy which have been thoroughly disproven by history show how far removed from reality those attacks were, as are the attacks against Obama now. The writers of this pamphlet were the teabaggers of their day, and were equally as unbalanced and insane as our current far-right extremists. (CLICK ON THE PICTURE TO ENLARGE FOR EASIER READING).



The far-right has nothing to offer this country or the world by preaching fear, laissez-faire economics, ultra-conservative religion, and outright lies.