batshit insane rightwingers.

we get mail:

i got an odd email from a guy from an organisation called PatriotsVoice.Org from Pennsylvania Avenue in DC - i thought it was spam, but i responded cos i was curious in a perverse kinda way

he emailed me back - heres some of what he had to say:

BTW, are you a leftist of some sort or a Conservative of some sort. From your site I couldn't tell, and that is bad.

i guess we should be at least thankful that there are still some sorts of leftistism, and some sorts of Conservatives - even though they apparently live in completely different universi, and that is bad.

i replied: "i dont really identify as Conservative - labels seem to have been
rendered largely meaningless these days."

he went on to say:

"Your site seems way to chaotic to influence much of anyone."

which i totally agree with

then this:

"I see Red China, a brutal dictatorship, winning and Australia losing as
things move along... Could we have a conversation about these and other things with an eye to being more effective at what we are doing."

to which i replied: "i think that you are right about china winning. hopefully australia can win too. australia has a sad history of appeasing brutal states -
most famously indonesia and america. i wish it was different."

i wonder if ill hear back from him.

i realise that its probably bad form to publish bits of emails without permission, but it was too much fun to pass up, but anyone who says that its 'bad' that a website isnt explicitly 'leftist' or 'Conservative' deserves to be mocked, publicly.

PatriotsVoice.Org has more lunacy - the homepage argues that independence is really really good, although:

"The sharing of the same mood is a pretty good social solvent and coordinate but not always easy to accomplish."

thou shalt assimilate, independently, and call thyself a patriot. and yet:

"the Reds took over Hollywood in and around WW II, and are substantially still camped out there."

what gets called 'Hollywood' (aka msdm) of course is the perfect tool for creating that great social solvent called "the same mood", but hollywood is bad and independence is good, on our way to the same mood.

these people are fucking psycho, and there are a lot of them. i would like to believe that it is simply a difference in ideology - but it goes way beyond that. theres a collective insanity that is truly frightening. there are nutcases everywhere. everywhere! i wouldnt mind the differences so much if there was at least a semblance of intellectual integrity on 'the other side', but it simply doesnt exist. i used to try to hang out at the weekly standard or WND and others in a search for sentience, but it just doesnt fucking exist.

the reality-based-community, to its detriment, is full of diverse ideas, but at least they are largely internally consistent and intellectually honest. theres no such integrity on the right, and its fucking frightening. read this post by digby in which he looks at a survey of leading conservatives' views of 'intelligent design' for example. its just fucking dishonest.

or look at this post by gilliard about scary foreigners - this sort of shit is even scarier than intellectual dishonesty. its unintellectual honest with lashings of certainty. or something. whatever it is, its really fucking dangerous.

theres a dangerous confluence of ignorance and propaganda - but mostly propaganda. there are starving uneducated folks in africa with more fucking sensibility than the right wing scream machine and the echoers - so its troublesome to blame the education system and 'ignorance' - i think most of the blame lies at the feet of the media. its so effective, and so dangerous. ive long said that i think fox et al (up to and including the nyt) ought to be brought up on RICO charges along with the impeachment of the president and most of congress. i dont think thats too extreme. they knowingly, intentionally, cause all of this mayhem and they ought to be brought to account.

as an aside, Kos went on a rampage today: "I have a high tolerance level for material I deem appropriate for this site, but one thing I REFUSE to allow is bullshit conspiracy theories. You know the ones -- Bush and Blair conspired to bomb London in order to take the heat off their respective political problems. I can't imagine what fucking world these people live in, but it sure ain't the Reality Based Community."
i accept/respect his position (i havent been following any of those discussions) - but it strikes me that theres a fundamental difference between craziness on the left, and craziness on the right (although maybe im equally misguided) - when the 'Right' heard about london, the response was 'lets kill everyone but us' (some samples here ( via here)) - id link to think that responses like mine are a bit more thoughtful - trying to tease out the possibilities and trying to ascertain what makes sense based on some (admittedly constructed) logic. maybe our side is as stupid as the Right, but speaking for myself only, at least i try to make whatever case im making, and i try to lay it out for all to see. as for "bullshit conspiracy theories", im not sure if kos distinguishes between "bullshit conspiracy theories" and "conspiracy theories" generally, perhaps he is the final arbiter, but i think that recent history categorically illustrates that "conspiracy theories" can be more accurate than Conventional Wisdom - it doesnt mean that all of them are, so the only question is where we draw the 'bullshit' line. it seems that the iraq war 'conspiracy theories' are now Conventional Wisdom - and i have little doubt that the 2004 election conspiracy theories will turn out to be equally valid (it seems that the bush/gore theories have also reached that point, even if they arent quite explicitly acknowledged). im not necessarily saying that bush/blair specifically killed those 50 people in london, but we do know that they lied and killed 100,000 people in iraq, and 1700 ams. we have categoric proof of that. if they did that, then surely anything is possible. it surely doesnt make it so, but it certainly isnt beyond the realms. or maybe im as crazy as the batshit insane rightwingers. i certainly hope so.