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Among the Intellectualoids
Blue Rage and Red Rage
Some Bush assassination reveries from Frank Rich’s progressive friends.
(Page 2 of 2)
Lethal Bush-hatred soon metastasized beyond the print and electronic media, to be represented in the graphic arts: At Chicago’s Columbia College, a curated exhibit included a sheet of mock postage stamps bearing the words “Patriot Act” and depicting President Bush with a gun to his head.
Assassination chic has also taken cinematic form, as in Death of a President, a recent movie about the murder of George Bush. Written and directed by British filmmaker Gabriel Range, this pseudo-documentary, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, opens with images of Bush being picked off by a sniper in a Chicago hotel in October 2007. The film Photoshops the president’s face onto the head of the actor playing him, so that the mortally wounded target seems, quite convincingly, to be Bush himself. Noah Cowan, a festival co-director, has played down the film’s “harrowing” aspects, and instead describes Death of a President as “a classic cautionary tale.” The flick is really about “how the Patriot Act, especially, and Bush’s divisive partisanship and race-baiting has [sic] forever altered America.”
Finally, at the height of any vogue there is a buck to be made; hence, the predictable merchandising spin-offs, and Bush-Assassination fashion statements, such as the “KILL BUSH” T-shirts that were flogged by CafePress, an online retailer.
Many Bush death-wishers chose not to hide behind their blogging pseudonyms, but marched — presumably under the eyes of the police — carrying placards that openly declared their violent sentiments. The producer of “Zombie-Time,” who records left-wing marches around the country, has photographed a host of these provocative placards. Here are some of the most expressive examples of the genre:
“KILL TERRORISTS. BOMB THERE HOUSE (sic). KILL BUSH. BOMB HIS F—-IN HOUSE”
“SAVE MOTHER EARTH. KILL BUSH”
“HANG BUSH FOR WAR CRIMES”
“BUSH IS THE DISEASE. DEATH IS THE CURE.”
“I’M HERE TO KILL BUSH. (SHOOT ME.)”
“BUSH IS THE ONLY DOPE WORTH SHOOTING.”
“DEATH TO EXTREMIST TERRORIST PIG-BUSH”
“THE WORLD NEEDS MORE PEOPLE LIKE YOU: KILL BUSH!”
A mobile guillotine was paraded with the sign, “BUSH WHACKER,” hung over a basket containing the president’s severed head.
There were at least five years of such open, public hate-speech. Reading through it, I was struck by two things: the evident lack of response from either the public or the Feds, and a perhaps related phenomenon — the “ordinariness” of such extreme rhetoric. Given the hectic climate of the times, such over-the-top babble, the voice of the lunatic fringe, was now just part of the crowd noise in the newly liberated, exhibitionistic America. The lunatic fringe had not changed, what had changed were the platforms from which its members could shout their paranoiac, homicidal messages. No more soapboxes in Union Square; now they performed in Carnegie hall. The cuckoo-bird Lunatic Fringe had moved into and replaced the cultural center.
And who had invited them into the Holy of Holies? Who had celebrated them, as the viceroys of The Age of Aquarius? Who had sneered at their detractors, calling them “Life-Hating” War Hawks, Male Chauvinists and Homophobes? Those who had de-toxified and legitimized the language of the fringe were the same radicals who now squeal indignantly when Sarah Palin uses the word “reload.”
Letter to the Editor View all comments (48) | Leave a comment
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drudge ette obama| 4.19.10 @ 6:23AM
These people are not healthy-mentally-speaking. But you can read this type of stuff daily on D.U. or Daily Kos. Just google Ann Coulter and Adam's Apple. People can be very cruel.
But Bill Mayer's "could have went" - now who's the real dummy? He should have had that taught out of him years ago.
David T.| 4.19.10 @ 9:58AM
Yes, the "could have went" speaks volumes about a man who thinks he's so brilliant and sophisticated.
Tomas| 4.19.10 @ 11:23AM
Coulter is a favorite target of the left's never-ending bile. They put out these amazingly bad (not just hateful) images of everyone who disagrees with them. Pretty much standard fare (witness Olbermann's Worst Person segment - oh, that's right: no one watches Olbremann... my bad).
In the same breath the left gets all hoity-toity and call anyone who makes a rational rebuttal of their ideology - eg., Tea Partiers talking about government - as "Haters."
Prior to Bush they were able to get away with their false smears of the opposition. But Bush, God love him - managed to bring out the deep, seething hatred these people feel for all conservative in their sharp-focused attacks on him.
The truth was now out.
It has always been my understanding that anyone who threatens the life of a President can be charged with a felony. How many warrants did you see handed out during Bush's tenure?
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Tomas| 4.19.10 @ 11:23AM
Coulter is a favorite target of the left's never-ending bile. They put out these amazingly bad (not just hateful) images of everyone who disagrees with them. Pretty much standard fare (witness Olbermann's Worst Person segment - oh, that's right: no one watches Olbremann... my bad).
In the same breath the left gets all hoity-toity and call anyone who makes a rational rebuttal of their ideology - eg., Tea Partiers talking about government - as "Haters."
Prior to Bush they were able to get away with their false smears of the opposition. But Bush, God love him - managed to bring out the deep, seething hatred these people feel for all conservative in their sharp-focused attacks on him.
The truth was now out.
It has always been my understanding that anyone who threatens the life of a President can be charged with a felony. How many warrants did you see handed out during Bush's tenure?
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Ret. Marine| 4.19.10 @ 7:34AM
At what turn does the first amendment rights of these cooks turn into a hard left turn of imprisonment. Anybody? Now we see the same words and actions turned against honest hardworking tax paying citizens for our nerve to stand up for the same laws that protects their rights to resist trial for threats.
I guess I have turned into my Dad. In my youth no one, and I mean no one ever dared make such alligations, let alone threats to a sitting President of these United States. I must also say that in those times we at the least had no doubts as to the American born status of these Presidents, but, can't even tell for sure one way or the other regarding this so-called president, now can we?
This is not the issue. What is at issue is the moral upbringing of these same people we are forced to call our fellow citizens. It is my understanding that if you talk like a marxist, walk like a marxist, act like a marxist, the possibility remains that you are in fact a marxist. It should be of no suprise that the left leaning marxist and the anti-american types lump the conservative states as "red states" I guess it is a sick joke among themselves that they are the commies and very red indeed, and the left leaning states as "blue states", when in fact the exact opposite is true by their ideology alone. Of course everything we hold true to our nature and well being as Americans is in opposition to this current breed now in power. White is now black, good is now evil, down is up and so forth.
Nothing like projection to understnad where We the People stand in opposition to their agenda. Maybe the best answer to their plight is to simply laugh at them at every turn and possibility we encounter. I know it works, hell my daughter-in-law hasen't asked one thing from me since the day after the election when she told me she voted for this imposter, I could not stop laughing at her and still can't anytime I see her. Is it great to live in America or what?
drudge ette obama| 4.19.10 @ 7:48AM
Sorry about the daughter-in-law. I hope you are working on any grandchildren to counteract influences.
CJSegura| 4.19.10 @ 10:17AM
My brother has a magnetic thingy on his refrig..."proud to be a member of Obama's Kitchen Cabinet." I asked him to name 10 things Obama was going to "fix." He wrote back saying he was not going to tell me 10 reasons he liked about Obama. I call my flower garden my Obama Garden because they take my mind of Obama. I like digging in the dirt. My brother and I don't speak anymore. He admires Michael Moore. Oh well. When he's no longer able to get insurance or help for his wife who has MS wonder what he will think of Obammy then.
Spartuchis| 4.19.10 @ 12:26PM
He's still your brother, dopey views aside, and he's the only one you have, as me Dad used to say.
Ned| 4.19.10 @ 12:32PM
My brother is also a fan of Mr. Moore... when I asked him why he defended Moore by saying that he has some points to make... but did not react well when I said that if Moore is unable to make those points *honestly* without gross distortion and bais, then perhaps his "points" are more propoganda than point-of-view, and aren't worth making... we don't talk much anymore...
C.K. Amos| 4.19.10 @ 7:54PM
"It is my understanding that if you talk like a marxist, walk like a marxist, act like a marxist, the possibility remains that you are in fact a marxist."
You're being polite.
"Maybe the best answer to their plight is to simply laugh at them at every turn and possibility we encounter."
I wish it were that simple. But I don't think they understand any language other than power and its application.
martin j smith| 4.19.10 @ 8:14AM
As I posted in another article its time to take the offensive on this "who is the creators of hate" in politics. Time to stop being surprised complaining or shocked. Time to look at the Left position an another variation of the BIG LIE and throw it back to their faces so to speak. Actually using some the rhetoric during the GWB presidency is excellent material.
Mattled| 4.19.10 @ 8:21AM
I've been saying for weeks and have written some of the Billboard folks that we need to target the media on those billboards.
Let's make the news about THEM, not us.
Courics, Lauers, Matthews face on a huge billboard with YOU LIE or WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA? would be front page news and go viral.
They would explode.
We need to target them and embarrass them----they do it to use every day with purposefulness and lies----the purpose being to advance the myth of Obama and how great he is.
Tim*| 4.19.10 @ 8:24AM
We,Tea Party Rebels neither allow The New York Times and Frank Rich to " define " us , nor lecture us.
We Remember In November !
Rise Up !
Curly Smith| 4.19.10 @ 8:25AM
The left wanted Bush to go the way JFK did, we want Obama to do another Carter - slink off in ignominious defeat. It's a political war, we have ideas; they don't so they resort to bullets. They have the intellectual superiority of a two-year-old.
Ragnar| 4.19.10 @ 9:48AM
"Progressives" know not who they are because it is their kind who manned the machine guns,pulled the levers: shooting and gassing their way through the Twentieth Century and now they are gearing up for the Twenty First. They wear red stars or swastikas: their uniforms are black,brown or green. They do it for "Der Volk" or the "proletariat", the Emporer; for "Gott" or Allah. It always ends up the same: piles of bodies crushed societies-devestation. "Progressivism" is mass insanity.
Louis Jenkins| 4.19.10 @ 10:02AM
The left can write fiction, or do what they will. The bottom line is that we have a leftist in the White House, a leftist Congress, and for all practical matters a leftist judiciary (although not lately). For us to think otherwise is pure baloney. Are we going to change it or accept it?
Tocmann| 4.19.10 @ 10:08AM
I haven't been to a Tea Party, but am supportive. Gutmann is right here. The left's rising volume and pitch is commensurate with their failing logic. Pathetic.
davelnaf| 4.19.10 @ 10:28AM
Despite what they would want you to believe about them leftists are really very sensitive people and easily offended by any form of counter criticism. They might have their kill Bush fantasies, but this says more about their collective state of mind than anything else and they would almost certainly never act on them.
Leftist expressions of anger at Tea Party people are in the same vein; it is not so much anger as hurt that these people would dare criticize the wonderful things they want to pull off. It all goes to show how dainty and easily crushed Leftist egos are by principled opposition, in particular, daring to criticize the Chosen One’s statist schemes! Dem operatives understand this psychology very well because they suffer from the same thing and are desperate to demonize the Tea Party people in order to limit the political bloodbath this November. In effect this is about picking the crying lefties up and brushing them off with a kiss or two to keep them energized. What else are dem operatives to do these days, considering the sensitive little dregs they have to work with?
Pingback| 4.19.10 @ 10:29AM
from the American Spectator online, 4/19 « The Engine Room links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Gr0w1er| 4.19.10 @ 12:46PM
Imagine what the uproar would be if 'Obama' were
substituted for 'Bush'. Yikes. Talk about your 1st and 2nd Amendment Rights' suspensions on people
who would dare commit this...'blasphemy'.
Ken (Old Texican)| 4.19.10 @ 12:49PM
Davelnaf,
Now you have done it!
The Soros ____suckers are now finishing their first cup of coffee after having slept late...again.
Boy, you are in for it now.
heh.
Pingback| 4.19.10 @ 3:05PM
Who is being incendiary? | Chicago Daily Observer links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Northern Rebel| 4.19.10 @ 3:35PM
I pray to God every day, that "President Anti-Christ" isn't harmed. The martyrization of this inexperienced punk, would be more than my stomache could spare. He would be like MLK, and Jesus rolled into a big ball of spin, that would make Kennedy's assasination seem like squirrell roadkill by comparison.
So I will now warn everyone to keep an eye on the types of people coming and going from Hillary's camp.
How do they say it on those cop shows?
Oh yeah, motive, method, and opportunity!
C.K. Amos| 4.19.10 @ 8:06PM
I disagree that Obama's "President Anti-Christ," though I think he 's probably a good preview.
But I'm with you re: him--and his family, as well--not being harmed. I pray for that.
I worry, though, that should something happen, it will come from his own camp and the fall-guy or guys will be framed white Southern males who probably are evangelical-Christian types and either Republicans or independents.
May sound paranoid, but at present, I put nothing beyond the Democrats/liberals/leftists, but especially those very-deep and big pockets who engineered Obama's selection as POTUS.
grumpy| 4.19.10 @ 4:25PM
I just finished copying this article, substituting The Anointed One's name for Bush's. It was time consuming, but it DID feel good!
Gr0w1er| 4.19.10 @ 6:32PM
"Blasphemer...!". Lmao2!
1FreeMan| 4.19.10 @ 4:26PM
Expose the lies whenever you can and do it immediately. The ugliness of progressivism, socialism and such can not thrive in the light of day.
Just like the tea parties where the insurgents were followed with signs outing them we need to out the liars and posers as soon as we identify them.
We have been asleep at the wheel long enough. Part of this is our own fault.
Purpleguy| 4.19.10 @ 4:36PM
The difference is that nowadays, the right wiingers actually will act on the rhetoric ...
GreyLion| 4.20.10 @ 10:04PM
As if the BTAF, the ATF, Bill Clinton, and Janet Reno didn't act at Waco deliberately killing over 80 men women and children and that paragon of the FBI and sniper fame Lonnie boy whoriuchi didn't shoot the woman at Ruby Ridge. Lets also add in John Hinckley, Lee Harvey Oswald, the Watts riots, the Chicago riots, The Symbionese Liberation Army, the Weather Underground, The Students for a Democratic Society, The Black Panter Party and oh, I don't know, a few others who act on violent rhetoric. Not one of these fine people and wonderfully patriotic groups were right wing or conservative. OH! I forgot. Sirhan sirhan. Yes sir, a real upstanding citizen - who would be unable to say "right" let alone profess "right" wing ideals.
Now, Purp, I know that it is pretty hard to shame the shameless but after all, son, stupidity is a shame and you are terminally shameful.
Petronius| 4.19.10 @ 4:40PM
Unto all Demotwats who doth protest of any utterings from the "Right". You don't know where the "Right" is. It has had no influence in Washington since the Code Duello was proscribed in 1840. If those of us on "the Right" had any real clout, duelling would still be legal, and the lowlife who hurl insults in front of the cameras would be called out by any and all who would take offense, be dispatched and their carcasses stripped by the crows.
Marc Jeric| 4.19.10 @ 5:01PM
It has been my pleasure to read and listen to the rage of our eco-nazis and commies when their attempted coup d'etat in Florida 2000 failed. The hatred they displayed then is now turned toward the Tea Partiers. But how can they produce such a long list of utter losers and functional morons and degenerates like McGovern, Dukakis, Carter, Mondale, Gore, Clinton (disbarred felon and sexual deviate), and now the new commie Abu Hussein from Kenya of the Chicago mafia origin - and then expect a different result? They will eventually sink into the oblivion - the American people have become wise to their ruses.
Aelfgyva| 4.21.10 @ 10:40AM
You speak with sincerity and veracity, but I keep hearing how fed up the American people are, how right-to-center this nation is and yet this hated "minority" controls the educational system in this country (producing armies of little lefties), they run the bulk of the media (forming public opinion), they have the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives. They will soon add another of their number to the Supreme Court. I love your sentiment about sinking into oblivion, but every time I turn around, reality bites.
Elle| 4.19.10 @ 6:35PM
Amen, Amen, and Amen!!!
Rich Rostrom| 4.19.10 @ 7:07PM
FictionPress is a website where anyone who wants to can "publish" any work of fiction they want to. Citing a work posted there as evidence of widespread lust for Bush's assassination is really reaching. It's got no relevance to anyone significant.
It would be like taking a single comment on a Free Republic thread as "evidence" of "right-wing hysteria" fomented by Rush Limbaugh.
There is real evidence of the left's comfort with anti-right violence: Zombietime's photos, for instance. But FictionPress doesn't signify anything, and citing it makes your case look weak,
Mmonides| 4.19.10 @ 7:47PM
A couple out of context statements and some works of fiction compared to actual plots, threats and bomb collections. Apparently false equivalencies continue to be a mainstay of right wing apologism for their violent, treasonous and secessionist Teaparty movement.
Etiquette Man| 4.20.10 @ 12:10AM
More quasi-RINOdom from AmSpec:
"I don't agree with Rich that such murderous language is exclusive to Republicans or Tea Partiers."
Gee, thanks guy. So we ARE guilty of murderous language, but we're not the only ones.
With friends like these . . .
Yosemeti Sam| 4.20.10 @ 2:43AM
Yo - Leftoids.
The headlights are upon y'all and y'all ain't deer -
dears!
Just keep them eyes fixed - till November.
LOL.
Richard Baker| 4.20.10 @ 8:48AM
Mentally bereft are these lefties. Must be off their Thorazine.
Tony in Central PA| 4.20.10 @ 12:46PM
I regularly read " Among the Intellectualoids " and I am hoping to see this blog review Thomas Sowell's " Intellectuals in Society ", which I am now reading and enjoying.
" Intellectualoids " used to be " pseudointellectuals ". Real intellectuals are people with specialized knowledge in a particular area who make a living off of their ideas, according to Sowell. Here's the great thing about being an intellectual as opposed to other people who earn a living off of ideas that are actually tested, like scientists and engineers : there's no penalty for failure. As an intellectual, you can make all manner of inaccurate predicitions, bad analyses, even inflammatory and grossly irresponsible statements and suffer no consequences as long as you're approved by the intellectual community at large. Case in point being the preceding article.
" Intellectualoids " are what Sowells identifies as the intelligentsia. The intelligentsia may or may not be intelligent or educated, but they attach themselves to the intellectuals and honor their orthodoxy. Exhibit A from the preceding article is Bill Maher. They also seek immunity from rational criticism by adopting the emblems of the intellectuals. When rational debate fails them, as it almost immediately does in most cases, they quickly resort to insulting their adversaries personally while glorifying themselves.
Its an old game, but one that has gotten too old, and the ones running it now appear to be in charge.
Oldefarte| 4.20.10 @ 3:18PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JamlN971AY
Tyler S.| 4.21.10 @ 3:06PM
I concur entirely with this article (a pleasant surprise, for a liberal reader of American Spectator). Both sides have been guilty of over the top rhetoric. Indeed, much to my enduring shame, I myself was more than once guilty of it under Bush, during his first term (I tried to be aware of it and stop during the second). Its hypocritical now for many on the left to turn around and condemn the right for doing the same thing (though generalizations, as usual, obscure reality, and there are those on both sides who have consistently risen above such poor behavior). Its somewhat unfortunate, because it really should stop from both sides, but no one should really get to cry foul.
One note, however, Art will follow life, and while we would be well served to dial back our rhetoric in real world discussion and debate, we cannot limit our ability to express ourselves artistically. I would stand up to defend a gallery of Obama-Hitler pictures created for artistic purposes just as strenuously as I would defend all art.
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