Well, the folks who said that the birthers wouldn't fold up and go home were certainly right. The birthers (shall we call them "afterbirthers" now?) are now saying that the Obama birth certificate presented on national television was fake. They know this because Obama is a Negro, and all Negros are liars. And also because of some loony theories about how it's not the right format or has the number of the beast encoded into it (no, not joking, WorldNutDaily actually said that!) or silliness like that, even though the State of Hawaii says it's valid, even though various people including one of the nurses who worked in the hospital have come forward and say they saw the newborn Obama there, and so forth.
This is what comprises political discourse on the right today -- spittle-flecked racist allegations that the President of the United States is part of some vast conspiracy to lie to the nation because, well, because all them darkies are liars, didnja know? Sad to say, the only conspiracy I see here is *stupidity*.
Gotta go, hear some trumpets, the rapture must be starting! And, uhm, we do have a way of determining the eligibility of someone to serve as President. It's called the vote. We The People decided Obama was eligible. Apparently that doesn't satisfy World Nut Daily's Joseph "Crazy Joe" Farah and the afterbirthers, who are bound and determined that *they*, not the voters, are the ones who shall decide whether anybody's allowed to run for President or not. Hmm, you know someone else who has the same opinion? Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran, who personally determines the eligibility of every candidate for higher office in Iran. Great company you got there, birfers!
-- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
In my work in psychiatric settings, I have tried to talk reality to people who are floridly delusional. There was one who was always angry, and she would accuse me and other staff of using our minds to give her heart attacks. When I'd say "But Gladys, that can't be true, because nobody's mind has that power. Besides, you've been saying that about us for weeks, and you haven't had a single hear attack." Didn't matter. She could not be persuaded away from the idea that we were giving her heart attacks.
ReplyDeleteThat's who I think about when I hear about the Birfers -- schizophrenics with "fixed delusions" (i.e. the ones who can't let go of their fantasies.) I'm not sure how many actually believe it vs. how many know Obama is a citizen but they're just using sophistry to push an issue that will let them avoid having to acknowledge that their side lost but they just can't get the fuck over it. Many people have varying degrees of mental illness, so there are probably many Birfers who have drunk so deeply of the imaginary Kool-Aid that they have convinced themselves. Delusional self-hypnosis.
Forgive me for a long cut-n-paste, but I don't know whether you're a regular TruthOut reader. This is such wonderful invective by William Rivers Pitt, directed at the people you scorn in this post, that I wanted to re-Tweet it here in case you or some of your readers wouldn't have seen it otherwise. (Added bold emphasis ("emphases"?) are mine.)
ReplyDelete"Forgive this leap to judgment, but I have a sneaking suspicion I know just exactly what type of person goes in for this breed of apocalyptic nonsense. Let me guess: you're a Christian of the evangelical stripe, white, and your ears are forever attuned to the dog-whistles of social conservativism. You voted for George W. Bush twice, and would have happily done it a third time if given the chance. It's almost certain your whole life is caving in around your ears, and you are utterly unable to cope. You can't make the mortgage payments, your job got outsourced to somewhere, and you seethe at the presence of non-English-speaking brown people around you, even when they mow your lawn and empty your trash and serve your food. You think Rush and Beck sit at the right hand of God, and you've been voting Republican ever since Ronald Reagan invited Jerry Falwell to the White House. You are a follower, an adorer of authority in all its permutations. You smell like fear.
Your life is caving in around your ears, to an incredibly large degree, because you have supported - with your time, your money, and your badly-spelled signs at Tea Party rallies - the very politicians, corporations and power-brokers who have savaged your future. You believe in the demigod of free-market capitalism (because Rush and Beck tell you so) even as that system steals from you, your children and their children to come. You see the writing on the wall and perceive it as runes carved there by devils and socialists and Muslim fellow-travelers, because you have been well-trained to do so. You would not know the truth of your life if it voided its bladder in your face, because you are inculcated with a world-view that is sustained by hatred, distrust, fear, and the clannish bonding of the cult-bound who think as you do, and so are "saved."
Yours is the church of cognitive dissonance - the more truth is presented to you, the more vigorously you reject it in favor of the pain-cave of your dilapidated ideals. This day of doom is your best option, and your greatest hope, because the spiraling dissolution of your stunted follower's faith leaves you no other options save the blessed simplicity of oblivion. You are thoroughly suicidal, at bottom, and when that end does not come for you (and, psssst, it's not coming), you will be forced to cope with the truth of Sunday's rising dawn, and the sad fact of your continuing existence.
I think you might live your whole life and die without taking responsibility for the pernicious nature of your influence on our culture, but I hold out hope for you. Jesus did not ring your bell today, and maybe that means it's time to re-evaluate your role in things."