From John Birchers to Birthers - The right's paranoid political style has gone mainstream

WSJ ^ | 10/20/09 | Thomas "don't call me Barney" Frank

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

The old JBS underestimated the conspiracy.
Even they never predicted that the socialists would make
school children worship the leader as a false messiah with absurd and ridiculous songs of praise.

Tailgunner Joe also underestimated the problem.
Can you imagine the howling of liberals if Joe McCarthy
had claimed Eisenhower had had a science czar who talked
about putting anti-fertility and sterilization drugs in the water supply???!!!

But sending butch Maoists out to speak and recruit at high school
commencements seems like an SNL parody. Worthy of Sterling Hayden and Dr. Strangelove.
The Alinskyites in the Obama White House are a parody
of Bircher conspiracy theories. So who needs theories?

[rstrahan]

You’re not paranoid if someone is after you....and they are.

[Zionist Conspirator]

I don’t particularly hold Birchers in high regard either. they tend to take too many flights of fancy for my palette. But compared to marxists, they are gold.

My problem with the Birchers--and please remember that I used to be one--is that (and I sincerely believe this, however wrong I may be) they act as the "blue lodge" of the anti-Semitic movement in this country. People who join are not showered with anti-Semitic propaganda, but there are subtle doses given here and there that push members in that direction. Then when the victim "bites" at the bait they make a big deal of throwing them out when the fact is they wouldn't have become anti-Semites without the subtle messages of the JBS to begin with.

The JBS is basically "chr*stian reconstructionist," anti-Fundamentalist, anti-Israel, and a continuation of the people who thought we fought on the wrong side in WWII. They are opposed to the "war on terror" and to American "interference" in the Middle East (because they think it benefits Jews) but they had no problem with the military draft in the Sixties or "American interference" in Central America in the Eighties. It's only bad for America when "democracy" gets exported to the Middle East. And no, I am not a Wilsonian, but I do detest this hypocrisy.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Everything the John Birch Society predicted has happened, or is happening now!!

[marron]

I guess he missed the punchline about Joe McCarthy, where in the aftermath of the cold war we found out that he was right.

And he isn’t at all suspicious of the fact that, ok, I get it, its crazy to think the O’s birth certificate is a forgery, which is why he won’t produce it, and the entire press establishment agrees that its crazy to even bring the subject up. And its crazy to ask to see his college records, and his passport records. You’d have to be a conspiracy nut to even think of it.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

It’s hip to be square. :)

[Stepan12]

ARe the birthers really all that nutty? Orly Taitz for example? excerpts from the link:

"It so happens that 5 years ago the prestigious publication AP knew that Mr. Barack Hussein Obama, II was in fact born in Kenya and therefore not eligible to occupy the Office of the President."
********************************************
"Obama Born In Kenya According To 2004 News Article

Apparently OBAMA supporters now have a lot of explaining to do to Judge Carter, Orly Taitz ( which is presenting it to him as we write ), and the rest of the AMERICAN PEOPLE...."

As for the John Birch Society, I don't think everything can be explained by a conspiracy, but I have at in on their meetings and they seem like patriotic Americans to me. Also, they knew I was Jewish and I pace "Little Green Footballs," I detected no racism with them. In fact, they had a black policeman as a member* (I spoke with him about the purposly hidden, racist mumerings of Karl Marx).

*Blacks in the John Birch Society don't call themselves black, but, instead, they use the better term, negroe.

While I agree with them, there are some things I cannot get away with calling people despite my attempts to avoid PC language.

[RichInOC]

Mr. Frank, a good number of the left still think that 9/11 was an inside job. And a widely respected writer for one of the nation’s oldest literary magazines still believes the immediate past Republican vice-presidential candidate’s infant son...wasn’t her son. The paranoid style, it would appear, has at the very least gone bipartisan.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Bingo.
It's NOT a paranoid "theory" if it is really happening.
See #21.

[pissant]

The birchers I’ve known have not been anti-jew. But have been solidly anti-jihadist.

[Republic of Texas]

It used to be that if you saw a socialist behind every tree you were paranoid. Now it’s because there’s a socialist behind every tree.

[T. Buzzard Trueblood]

Back in Hofstadter's day this sort of thinking at least had something supremely rational going for it: The existence of the Soviet Union and its desire to bring the West to its knees

Oh, the left finally noticed that, did they?

[Zionist Conspirator]

The birchers I’ve known have not been anti-jew. But have been solidly anti-jihadist.

That surprises me, since my experience has been the exact opposite. But I believe you.

Their magazine (The New American) toes the straight Ron Paul line though, I believe.

[pissant]

Here’s a current article on their website:

Muslims Call for Sharia in Britain

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/world-mainmenu-26/europe-mainmenu-35/2121-muslims-call-for-sharia-in-britain

[Stepan12]

Mr. Frank, a good number of the left still think that 9/11 was an inside job. And a widely respected writer for one of the nation’s oldest literary magazines still believes the immediate past Republican vice-presidential candidate’s infant son...wasn’t her son. The paranoid style, it would appear, has at the very least gone bipartisan.

9/11 was an inside job! I know this is so because these bimbos in bikinis say it is so

They are terrorist sympathizers and they need to be spanked!

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

"Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock."
- John Holdren, Obama’s “science czar” on how to introduce population control drugs into the water supply

Not just a movie this time...

[RegulatorCountry]

Well, here’s a conspiracy for you ... the “Birther” label was cooked up precisely because it sounds like “Bircher,” and the plan all along has been to marginalize and discredit anyone who questions whether Obama actually is eligible under the Constitution. Tar them with the Bircher brush.

And, furthermore, ready-made “conspiracies” were sprung, not surprisingly with the aid of websites like Daily Kos, to suck the opposition in and discredit them. The so-called “fake” online birth certificate was is a major case in point, that seemed tailor made to target FReepers wanting to relive the glory days of Rathergate.

We had a university administrator and former psychologist (three guesses whether such a person is Republican or not), with a very questionable past, having set himself up previously as an “online dating expert,” who created and refined another online persona, then signed up to FR and presented himself as an authority on document analysis, and he drew quite a crowd. Never mind that a JPEG can’t prove anything. That was the point. While everybody in opposition to Obama, who had suspicions about his eligibility, were busy chasing their tails with this red herring, Obama sailed right into office, with the obvious, Constitutional disqualification of a foreign father just laying out in the open.

So, there’s conspiring alright. Conspiring to harness conspiratorial mindsets with manufactured conspiracies, and then beating us over the head with them.

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Have those Birchers been anti-Jew, or were they of the impression Jews held them and theirs in contempt?

Not trying to stir things up. Just making an observation.

There are a (lot) of arrogant, know it all pro-gay ACLU type Obama-hugging kook leftwing Jews in very influential positions in America, who with great regularity ridicule fly-over country, and the segment of America the Birchers represent.

Just saying.

Perhaps it’s defensiveness you’re seeing, and perhaps misinterpreting to be something more sinister than that.

[Republic of Texas]

Since the left is obviously crazy, it’s not paranoid to assume they are capable of anything, no matter how horrifying the idea.

[montag813]

The “Birthers” do a great job. Regardless of the truth, a significant percentage of Americans will always believe that Obama is illegitimate. and that doesn’t hurt a bit.