Question for the boomers and older ...

[Kaylee]

Can anyone who's been around longer than thirty-some years enlighten me as to whether the outright nuttiness that's been cropping up is a new thing or not? I mean, I remember the Black Helicopter crowd* was getting pretty antsy towards the end of Clinton's term, but it just seems I'm hearing more and more of (and from) the whole Bush=Hitler crowd these last few months.

Has it always been this way - political disagreements being phrased as hyperbolic battles against a frickin' Darth Vader and his mindless minons? Or is that more a new thing?

I asked my father about that today, and he mentioned stories about Kennedy wanting to turn the US over to the Pope - was that of the same order as the stuff we see nowadays? What else was happening then?















* No offense, Mr. Gummer.

[wmenorr67]

Has it always been this way - political disagreements being phrased as hyperbolic battles against a frickin' Darth Vader and his mindless minons? Or is that more a new thing?

The short answer is yes there has always been nutjobs.

Hell the country was founded in some ways by nutjobs.

[Gewehr98]

I think in this defining age of sensationalistic journalism and all the other modern media avenues, those who would previously receive nary a passing glance are now front-page news. 

IOW, they've always been there, but are a lot more visible these days. 

[Perd Hapley]

IICR, the anti-Federalists were accusing the Federalists of "blueprints for enslavement" and such, in the days before our Constitution was even online.  But they were just continuing the glorious traditions of the Revolution. 

Conspiracy talk is pretty deeply ingrained in American culture, and there is an argument to be made that we inherited that from our libertarian English forebears. 

In the Information Age, of course, conspiracy-mongers have more tools to bring you their point of view. 

[Standing Wolf]

What do you think the Civil War was: a family reunion?

The simple fact of the matter is a great many people have always been adamantly, even bitterly opposed to the very idea of individual freedom.

The Puritans have been here a long, long time.

[hoosier8]

Always been this way, read the book about John Adams by David McCullough (a must read).  Same stuff at the beginning of our country, just in your face all of the time if you have the TV on or look on the internet.

[HankB]

OK, I've passed the half-century mark, and there have been crazies on both sides, from the raving commies of the Weather Underground and misnamed SDS, to the militia/survivalist movement. (Almost invariably, it was the leftists who engaged in actual criminal violence, whereas the K-Mart Commandos on the right just talked a lot.)

But the real difference I've seen as I've aged is that the mass media today isn't even pretending to be objective any more. In the past, sure, there was bias, but it was subtle rather than overt. No more.

Also, much of the mass media really is anti-American today. For example, during Desert Storm, General Schwartzkopf wanted to fake out the Iraqi army, and figured out the best way to feed "disinformation" to Saddam & Co. was to call in American reporters for a "secret" briefing, tell them US lives were at stake, and then present the fake battle plan as if it were real. Sure enough, it leaked - and Saddam acted on the fake info. Schwartzkopf was able to put trust in the duplicity of the US media to deceive the enemy - and during a press conference, he told them so.

This has been known for quite a while. Before Desert Storm, Cap Weinberger was giving a press conference about our operations in Grenada. One reporter asked him  with a tradition of reporters going with the troops in WWII on D-Day and other operations, and in view of Ernie Pyle's famous reports from the front, why was the media cut off from covering Grenada?

After a few second's pause, Weinberger said, in the most matter-of-fact tone of voice possible, "In those days, you were on OUR side."

(BTW, if you didn't see or hear these live . . . odds are you didn't see or hear these at all.)

[Tallpine]

What else was happening then?

The Commies were taking over the world one domino at a time 

[MillCreek]

OK, I've passed the half-century mark, and there have been crazies on both sides, from the raving commies of the Weather Underground and misnamed SDS, to the militia/survivalist movement. (Almost invariably, it was the leftists who engaged in actual criminal violence, whereas the K-Mart Commandos on the right just talked a lot.)

How soon Mr. Timothy McVeigh has been forgotten. How soon the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord has been forgotten.

[qdemn7]

Absolutely, it is part and parcel of who and what America is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory"" target="_blank">Conspiracy Theory

According to Mintz, conspiracism denotes: "belief in the primacy of conspiracies in the unfolding of history":
    "Conspiracism serves the needs of diverse political and social groups in America and elsewhere. It identifies elites, blames them for economic and social catastrophes, and assumes that things will be better once popular action can remove them from positions of power. As such, conspiracy theories do not typify a particular epoch or ideology"

 http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html"" target="_blank">The Paranoid Style in American Politics By Richard Hofstadter Harpers Magazine, November 1964, pp. 77-86. Note the date it was written, 44 years ago. Granted Hofstader WAS anti-gun, but this is still a good read.

[HankB]

How soon Mr. Timothy McVeigh has been forgotten. How soon the Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord has been forgotten.

McVeigh was a criminal nutcase with one known accomplice - not much of a "movement" there.

As far as the CSA people were considered . . . yeah, they were a thoroughly unpleasant lot of hicks associated with some neo-nazis (note: nazi = national socialist) and a few members were engaged in some criminal activity . . . rehearsals for assassinations and such . . . but IIRC even their leader only spent a couple of years behind bars, and that was on weapons charges. And weren't their activities, such as they were, pretty much confined to the backwoods areas of Arkansas or something? (Cue music from Deliverance . . . )

[ilbob]

I think the Internet made the nuts more visible, and even lent them a certain amount of respectability.

John Birch Society was never much better and it predates the Internet by 40 some years.

The sad thing is now much of the Democratic party base consists of what would have been considered fringe people 40 years ago.

[Balog]

I think the Internet made the nuts more visible, and even lent them a certain amount of respectability.

John Birch Society was never much better and it predates the Internet by 40 some years.

The sad thing is now much of the Democratic party base consists of what would have been considered fringe people 40 years ago.

What exactly are the Birchers all about? All I know of them is they hate the UN.

[Gewehr98]

That's not saying much, Balog.

Heck, I hate the U.N. 

[longeyes]

There have been plenty of Darth Vaders in history.  It is not hyperbolic to recognize that tyranny is the common coin of political life.

[Balog]

That's not saying much, Balog.

Heck, I hate the U.N. 

Exactly. People are always ragging on Birchers, but I have no idea why.

[Waitone]

One of the reasons the Boomers tend to go with conspiracies is the history of the 60's.  Anyone who was conscious and aware during the 60's was familiar with how close western civilization came to spinning apart.  We had seriously damaged people wandering around in both the protest community and in the establishment.  We didn't have to make up stories about illegal gov't monitoring.  It was done routinely.  Gov't agencies could on their own target specific individuals and organizations for neutralization (however you want to define the term).  We had very dangerous groups operating and doing bad things yet government curiously seemed unable to do anything to stop them (even while targeting other groups for neutralization). 

I'm just one boomer who grew up in the 60's.  And that goes a long way in explaining my cynicism about government at any level.  I do not trust government, period.  I've seen too much abuse of power to blithely accept the premise of an altruistic government.

[qdemn7]

Exactly. People are always ragging on Birchers, but I have no idea why.

Read the Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_Society

Birchers had too much of the "usual suspects" conspiracism mentality, i.e.. 

According to Welch, "both the U.S. and Soviet governments are controlled by the same furtive conspiratorial cabal of internationalists, greedy bankers, and corrupt politicians. If left unexposed, the traitors inside the U.S. government would betray the country's sovereignty to the United Nations for a collectivist New World Order managed by a 'one-world socialist government.'

Birchers elaborated on an earlier Illuminati/Freemason conspiracy theory, imagining "an unbroken ideologically driven conspiracy linking the Illuminati, the French Revolution, the rise of Marxism and Communism, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the United Nations"

Republican mainstream unhappiness with the Birch Society intensified after Welch circulated a letter calling President Dwight D. Eisenhower a possible "conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy." The controversial paragraph was removed before final publication of The Politician. Welch also wrote that President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in advance, but said nothing because he wanted to get his country in the war.

In other words, it's the same old fertilizer of the world being controlled by secretive cabal.

[longeyes]

We are the ones we were afraid would show up.

Same generation.  I don't trust the State, and I don't trust the irrationalists either.  Both groups are about hypnosis and control, and they breed each other.

[Leatherneck]

Hell, Kaylee, there have been strong political feelings since before the birth of our nation. Those feelings take advantage of the media of the time, and we have the internet behind whose anonymity basement dwellers can hide. Thus, the vitriol we're seeing openly and instantly today. I am noting that BDS and simple bad manners seem to pervade the Left recently. And especially now that they're about to get their collective asses kicked.

TC

[Scout26]

Thre was also a real conspiracy back starting the the mid to late 1920's.   The rise of communism and the infiltration of the US .gov by communist agent is know a known fact.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project  and see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Soviet_and_Russian_espionage_in_the_United_States

among others.

Tailgunner Joe was right, he just didn't know how right he was. 


Hence the cause of most conspiracy theories.  There's also what William Manchester said referring to the Kennedy assassination. To paraphrase:  "On one side you have JFK, popular American President, leader of the Free World.  On the other, you have Lee Harvey Oswald.  A loser, a nobody.   It just doesn't balance, but if you put a nice, big conspiracy on that side of the scale, then things balance out."       

[macadore]

What exactly are the Birchers all about?

The Birchers believed Communist had infiltrated our government and were poised to take over. If you didnt believe them, they said that was what the Communist wanted you to believe. The fact that most people did not believe them was evidence of how good the Communist were.

 John Birch was supposedly the first U.S. soldier killed by the Communist. It happened at the end or WWII and he was killed by Maos people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Birch_(missionary)). This ignores the fact that 400 U.S. soliders were killed when we invaded Russia in 1918 (http://www.historywiz.com/invasionrussia.htm). Thats something we dont want to talk about.

The Birchers were spooked by the fact that the Communist refused to leave Eastern Europe and had taken over China. Then Russia got The Bomb with the help of the Rosenbergs, so there was some reason for concern. However, they let their imaginations run away with them. This, of course, was great for the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about  (http://books.google.com/books?id=v7Mj0qYxjFgC&dq=military-industrial+complex&pg=PP1&ots=iiMpjLhH7U&sig=YEZ5Zwn0BB2iauYByOfd_YL0SZ8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP1,M1 ).

This same mindset spread the rumor that LBJ conspired to kill JFK. His conspirators were supposedly the CIA, the mob, Cuba, The Soviet Union, or you could makeup your own. If you want a close look at the delusions they were under, read None Dare call It Treason (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_A._Stormer ) by John Stormer. William F. Buckely referred to is as None Dare Call It Bullshit http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.aspx?GUID=0A0BEE9A-3533-4415-9B69-8F156D31EA12 ).