The Mangled Corpse of the Enlightenment Project

This, from David Barton:
"Why is it that conservatives are convinced that they are in the minority?" Barton asked. "In reality, we're not, but we think we are ... According to statistics, when you look at the groups of liberals, and moderates and conservatives, conservatives are by far the most silent of those three groups. They're least likely to speak up, and why is that? It's because conservatives don't want to speak until they feel like they've mastered the facts about whatever the subject is that is under discussion. Now, liberals or moderates, they're happy to give you their opinion and tell you what they think, regardless of whether they know the facts. But conservatives don't like doing that, they want to know the facts before they answer what are often wild and baseless claims made by liberals and moderates." -

From:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/barton-conservatives-dont-want-speak-until-they-feel-theyve-mastered-facts#sthash.MtK3OXYm.dpuf


According to my largely anecdotal surveillance(the best I can do, given limited resources), the Hard Core of the Surrealist Movement in American Politics accounts for around 20% of the general population....they are far and away from “Silent”.
There is a further 30-50% who are either unsure, or apathetic, but are at the same time prone to being swayed by specious arguments, especially when their numerous, largely unconscious, Fear Buttons are pushed.
While there are indicators that the Surrealists are growing bored/disenchanted with politics(which I will address later(“the Benedict Option”)), their Organisations are standing athwart the machinery of government and economic power, and are unlikely to abdicate any time soon, without a large and vocal Liberal Populist Uprising.
The problem, of course, is that if there were such an Uprising, it would be spun by the likes of Barton and Rush and Hannity,et alia, as Proof that all the nonsense they've been spewing is accurate....that there really is a nefarious cabal of Gay Marxist Islamofascist Super-villians bent on the destruction of America and the Murder of all “Real Americans”.
This Spin would be accepted without question by the 20% or so of the True Believers(who are also very well armed), and prove convincing to a large portion of that 30-50% who are unsure/apathetic and Scared.
What I fear is that some or a lot of these folks will be scared enough by the Spin to “Take Action”....meaning that terrible Hobbsean Civil War of All against All that I've been warning about for 15 years.
Ted Cruz is one of “my” US Senators(the other never makes the news, he's safely in the background).
Watch any of his speeches.
There is a formula that is readily apparent.
Words like “Failed” and “Lawless” are repeated ad nauseum when the topic is Obama, Democrats or any of the more Liberal/Progressive things they say or do.
He never says anything about Obama without the qualifier.
This Formula is everywhere one looks on the Right.
Dig into their Fora and into the Comments sections of their parts of the Web, and it's there...being asserted without question.
We on the Left often lament that the Right has no solutions to the problems that are quite self-evident, to us.
We forget that if they acknowledge the existence of these problems at all, the fault for them is always either Government or some Other who is actively eating out the substance of the Nation...be it Blacks, Gays, Socialists, the Poor...on and on.
Everyone gets a turn at being to Blame, except for the folks who have been in de facto control of our Government and Economic System for 40+ years.

….“but/....but...but...Clinton was a Liberal...and Obama was a Liberal...ergo, Liberals have been running Government since FDR!!!”, they will say....but if one looks at the rise of the Third Way “New Democrats”, and their wholesale takeover of the erstwhile “Liberal Party”, taking it far to the Right, this is hardly the case at all.
The Third Way folks are the Corporate/Wall Street owned cancerous growth on the Liberal Majority in America.
They have helped to confuse the issues and the paradigm, itself.
We no longer know who we are, or what words mean.
(Ontological Crisis)
Turn on Fox News(sic), or listen to AM Radio....wild assertions are rampant.
Assertions, maybe most importantly, about what a Liberal Is...and what Liberals Believe and what they Want.
I am always shocked to learn that I want to turn everyone gay, and destroy the Family Unit, and make everybody march in lockstep to the concentration camps.
This is what is being routinely asserted...without challenge...in Right Wing World.
When we talk about a Bubble Universe, where Teabillies live...it is NOT Hyperbole.
They really have managed to overlay Objective Reality with a Scary Terrorworld of Total Fiction.
When I see things like the above quote from David Barton, it feels Hopeless.
Nothing can penetrate that Bubble. There is no way for us to reach our Frothing Brethren...they are too far down the rabbit hole.
Even Reason, itself, has been perverted to the Cause.
And when, at long last, Americans who are yet outside of that Bubble Universe have had enough, and endeavor to “Take Our Country Back”(!!!), it will be seen by the Lumpenbillies as an Attack...and Attack that they have been warned about for 40 years.
I hope that Bernie Sanders will truly move the Democratic Party back towards the Left...that we can overcome the Third Way Neoliberal Nonsense and present an actual viable Threat to the Plutocrats.
But I fear what the Deluded Hordes...the Bewildered Herd...will do when/if that happens.



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Here's a couple of random quotes from Barry Goldwater,”Mr Conservative”, that I find quite enlightening.
Remember that Hillary was a Goldwater Girl.




“Today’s so-called ‘conservatives’ don’t even know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.”
~Barry Goldwater
"On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism."
~Barry Goldwater