Roger Ebert column: The anger of the festering fringe

[mucifer]

By
Roger Ebert
on October 1, 2009 2:06 PM


I've had these thoughts for some time, but have been reluctant to express them. Now so many others have voiced them that it's pointless to remain silent. I am frightened by the climate of insane anti-Obama hatred in this country. I'm not referring to traditional conservatives or Republicans. They're part of the process. I'm speaking of the lunatic fringe, the frothers, the extremist rabble who are sweeping up the ignorant and credulous into a bewildering and fearsome tide of reckless rhetoric.

There have always been nuts. Remember when the John Birch society thought Kennedy was a communist? In those innocent days most of the American people were reasonable. They'd shake their heads in wonder at such a weird notion. Kennedy might be one of those liberals, but he wasn't a commie. And when people said Johnson murdered Kennedy? Also ridiculous. But slowly, ominously, things began to change. After his death, it was said that Edward Kennedy was a Soviet agent. These theories have rabid subscribers.

Obama is a Muslim. Obama was born in Kenya. Obama was a terrorist. Obama will destroy Medicare. Obama will kill your grandmother. Obama is a racist. Obama wants atheism taught in the schools. Obama wants us to pay for the health care of illegal immigrants.

These beliefs are held by various segments of our population. They are absurd. Any intelligent person can see they are absurd. It is not my purpose here to debate them, because such debates are futile. With the zealous True Believers there is no debating. They feed upon loops within loops of paranoid surmises, inventions which are passed along as fact. Sometimes those citing them don't even seem to care if you believe them. Sometimes they may not believe them themselves. The purpose is to fan irrational hatred against our president.


What are we to make of the recent suggestion on the "respected" right-wing site NewsMax, later withdrawn, that "it might not be such a bad thing" if the U. S. military rose up and overthrew Obama in a coup? That sort of talk belongs on a password-protected neo-Nazi or Klan site, not in a place where ostensibly intelligent people look for information. Where were the editors? What did they think? If they're "conservatives," do they support the overthrow of our government by a coup? ...

more at: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/10/the_anger_of_the_festering_fri.html
If you read the comments to his blog, Ebert responds to many of them.

[Laf.La.Dem.]

1. Thank you Roger

"ostensibly intelligent people" - the key word is OSTENSIBLY :rofl:

[tabasco]

2. Very smart and very kind and generous man.

They don't get much better than Roger.

[asjr]

3. Ebert read my mind. I was unable to

put it in words. Ebert did it for me.

[pretzel4gore]

4. but rog, that's the game (winning)..

surely it's obvious the rage is not really on the fringes- it's in the mainstream, on the left. But! By PRETENDING it's 'over there' we avoid confronting the facts blah blah blah. Neat, eh? Take marijuwwanna legalisation. The pig knows there's nothing stopping the legalising of pot; probably 80 percent of the people would go along (with 50 perecent saying 'about fukkin time!') including, especially the rightwingers....so how does mr pig PREVENT the very idea from getting onto the national agenda, or into debate? Since legalised marijuanna would bring down their house of cards?...Voila!! By attacking tobacco, BIG TOBACCO, evil corporate criminal tobacco companies, and the nasty people who sell tobacco, and all the terrible costs of addiction and soon! Gettit? OMFG! (they say) Neat, eh?
So Roger, the extremism on the fringes aint an issue (in Argentina in early 80's, the 'liberal' easy going, looking-forward classes thought law provided a framework, but not after chopper loads of their teenagers were taken out to sea for headshots and dumping etc)
The real extremists are the cops...
giggitey

[Lancer]

5. There's one major threat Ebert left out...

...and that's the "sex clinics" in schools that are going to whisk away pregnant 13-year-old girls during the school day to a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic (sic) and send them home on the school bus with their parents none the wiser.

Maybe Michelle Bachmann made this ominous prognostication on the House floor after Ebert's deadline.

[Vidar]

6. K&R

[saltpoint]

7. Ebert is a saint, as far as I'm concerned. He is terrific on films but

his social Spidey sense is as attuned as it gets.

Bravo, Mr. Ebert.

Very nicely done.

[RepublicanElephant]

8. two thumbs up, way up! nt

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Enthusiast]

12. +1, RE! nt

[Kdillard]

9. Wow couldn't have expressed it better myself. K and R.

[boppers]

10. A few hours of great reading.

It's a lot like an epic DU thread combined with an epic FR thread.

[a kennedy]

11. ditto to two huge thumbs up....

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :patriot:

[Lorien]

13. Call themwhat they are; "Hatriots"

I saw the term used recently in a YouTube comment. It fits the lunitic fringe perfectly. After all, when one of them was asked last November about what unites them all they said "we all hate the same things."

[LaPera]

14. Thanks Roger I adore ALL about you and have for many, many years!!