Are you Blue with a thin skin, or Red with a thin skin?

Something to ponder today, from this outside observer of US politics, particularly relevant to the current climate.

Consider these "word clouds"

George Walker Bush.

Uneducated moron. Stole the election. Should not have been in the Whitehouse. War criminal. Right wing fanatic. Unamerican. War monger. Walking fiscal disaster. Draft Dodger. Worst President the US has ever seen. Lame Duck. Christian Fundamentalist. Future dictator. Wants to dismantle the constitution/carries out unconstitutional acts. Neocon

Barack Hussein Obama

Communist. Over inflated Ego. Closet Muslim. Nazi. Personality Cult. Ineligible for President. Manchurinan candidate. Lame duck. Pacifist. Wants to dismantle the constitution/carried out unconstitutional acts. Unamerican. Obamatron/bot.

Vitriol. All of it. From both sides. Blue or red, as bad as each other.

If half as much time was spent debating the issues and coming up with solutions, as there is spent trying to invent ways of smearing the other side and conversely objecting about the smears, maybe more would get done?

Food for thought?

that's politics for ya though, isn't it? Always trying the one-upmanship on eachother, and the smearing is worse/better than your local clinic.

Back away from it all, and you've got the perfect solution IMO.

You know, I rarely comment on the lack of action in a thread - and I've never commented on a lack of action in one of my own threads before but I have to admit, I'm suprised here.

You would think that, with the sheer turgid rabidity of whats been posted on the board in the past few weeks, there would have been comments.

Maybe its too close to the bone, because its true?

I noticed that you posted "Pacifist" under Obama...since when is being a pacifist such a horrible thing? And i'm not directing the pacifist question to the OP but to all others who believe pacifism is "evil"...just clearing that up.

[edit on 8/12/2009 by Daedalus24]

reply to post by Daedalus24


I assume that its because, traditionally, Democrats are more "jaw jaw" than "war war", and therefore to the right wing/political extremist/take it as far as you can go/smear at all costs mindset, that translates into pacifism and is seen as a bad thing because that means he'd rather go for a political solution than one involving smart bombs dropped from 30,000ft.

But you have to remember that these things are not rational. They are not coming from rational mindsets. They are coming from "smear at all costs" mindsets.

American politics is by far and out more dirty then its Westminster counterparts that I have some awareness of which would be chiefly New Zealand and to a much lesser extend Australia . Although I haven't been able to find it again via Google I can remember reading an article four or five years ago , concerning the fact that the political environment was partisan then that had existed during the Watergate era . It not so much that the partisan hacks or the anti establishment crowd are thin skinned it is more of the fact that rational thinking deeply offends both crowds .

files.abovetopsecret.com...[/atsimg]][atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e8216703f ab7.jpg[/atsimg]The machine earth is about to enter a time of change. Death shall assail us from every direction and there shall be a die off of all living creatures and the earth itself destroyed. Never fear, you couldn't keep your bodies, they were poisoned and dying. During this season the neurons that activate the pain centers will slip into overdrive. You have been riding the planet in idle......it's getting ready to kick in gear and it will affect not only the red and the blue, but all the other colors as well.

reply to post by neformore

I think we on AboveTopSecret receive a much more concentrated dose of American political hate and paranoia than the mainstream does. When America shakes (and right now it is being well and truly shaken), all the nuts roll into web sites like this one.

Of course, many of our members are entirely disengaged from politics: too worried about aliens in the fridge, RF chips in 'flu vaccines and evil rays from HAARP penetrating their tin hats to worry about political issues or who's getting elected. But there are still planty of members to whom politics matter. Boy, how they matter.

Most of these people - the vast majority of those who engage in political debate on ATS - embrace what Richard Hofstadter called the 'paranoid style'.

That style is well-established. America being intensely committed to free speech, the paranoid style has a long and vivid history. 9/11 'truthers' today are spiritual descendants of the people who accused FDR of conspiring with the Japanese to mount Pearl Harbour and drag the US into the Second World War. Elite conspiracy theories and anti-Semitic ones have been an ugly staple of the country's national psyche since the beginning of the last century.

Lately, encouraged by both the mainstream media and the enabling power of the internet (ATS being a well-known example of the latter), the crazies have begun infecting the political mainstream. And since paranoia is largely (though not exclusively) a right-wing affliction, the election of President Barack Obama, a black man, has ramped up the hate by giving it a focus.

This week's Economist carries an excellent editorial about it: Still Crazy After All These Years. It's short, pithily written and well worth a read, especially for ATS members who can still find their marbles. The accompanying cartoon is worth the price of entry on its own. Enjoy.

I don't want to be either. You didn't offer enough choices.

Can I be gray with thick skin?

Do you think that this is really what it's all about anyway? If we can't rally behind someone, we won't feel like we're part of the process. If we get too disconnected, we'll see the game from the outside. If that happens, how will they ever explain it to us?

Are you one of those idealists that believes your vote counts?

It's so much easier to pick somebody, preferably a boss, or a president, and give them hell for ruining the country. I t certainly can't be MY fault. Right?.....(crickets chirping) Right?

Hoftstadter's original article for Harper's magazine can be found here.

Some quotes:

The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millenialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse.

Does that sound familiar? How about this?

As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader... Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated...

And this?

The enemy... is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way... The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will...

It is hard to resist the conclusion that this enemy is on many counts the projection of the self; both the ideal and the unacceptable aspects of the self are attributed to him.

I think that last observation is particularly relevant. These people aren't fighting a real enemy; there is no conspiracy of Jews or Illuminati or Communists or Wall Street bankers, after all, no conspiracy to enslave and subjugate ordinary Americans. That is the reality, whatever the prevailing mythos of this web site may be. These people are externalizing their own shadows - the parts of their own psyches they most hate or fear. They project these shadows onto others, and then attack those others.

Originally posted by KSPigpen
I don't want to be either. You didn't offer enough choices.
Can I be gray with thick skin?

You can be whatever you choose to be

Do you think that this is really what it's all about anyway? If we can't rally behind someone, we won't feel like we're part of the process. If we get too disconnected, we'll see the game from the outside. If that happens, how will they ever explain it to us?

Its all about distraction and obfuscation. People prefer to sling mud than think. Its much more fun playing the blame game, right?

Are you one of those idealists that believes your vote counts?

Now, if I was an idealist, I'd never even have looked for a conspiracy site to post on, let alone be part of the moderation team on one would I?

As for "your vote doesn't count" - well, actually, it does. Everyones vote counts. The problem comes when people sit in the mindset of "theres no one to vote for" or "a vote for..... is a wasted vote". If enough people vote elsewhere, the bigger parties lose their majorities, or at worst, get a kick up the backside to change some of their policies. Its not ideal in any way, shape or form. The biggest lie a politician, or political party can ever tell you is that "your vote doesn't count if...."

It's so much easier to pick somebody, preferably a boss, or a president, and give them hell for ruining the country. I t certainly can't be MY fault. Right?.....(crickets chirping) Right?

Wrong - but you knew that already

reply to post by Astyanax


The problem with labelling people as "crazy" is that its an entirely subjective viewpoint.

In all my years on this earth, the one thing I've learned is that just about anything can happen or, in the words of the Pet Shop Boys - "just when you least expect it, just what you least expect"

People have sociological accepted truths, but they also have personal truths and who is to say that what they think isn't right for them? Not you, or I.

And indeed, for example - the 17 year old girl who is terrified of sleeping because the greys come every night and experiment on her in hideous ways - she has her own truth. She knows because she experiences it. She may, actually, only be suffering terrible nightmares OR she may be actually being taken physically OR she may be suffering some form of mental rape at the hands of aliens OR she may be making the whole thing up.

The beauty (or menace I guess) is in finding out which is it.

Paranoia isn't just a right wing affliction by the way - this board has just been through four years of stuff like "Bush is a nazi who is going to suspend the constitution and declare martial law" - if you failed to notice that then the blinkers need to come off. Both sides are as bad as each other.

And that was my original point.

I'll have a look at that article though

What we need for a president is a gaseous body entity, whos coloring is of a rainbow quality.


Then no one can say it's just red or blue or black or white, because it is ALL these things.


Edit: Plus if you didnt like its policy, you could just open a window and it would drift out of the white house without a fight.

[edit on 8/27/2009 by Tentickles]

from the outside looking in, the US does a great impression of a failing consumerist society full of people so lazy and addicted to instant gratification that they don't even take the time or trouble to formulate their own opinions.

instead, most people seem to consume the simplistic, irrational, emotive talking points fed to them by whatever news outlet they're told is most appropriate to their demographic profile so that they can later regurgitate them at will, on cue.

i say it's an impression because i think it is, i think it's false. the old saying goes that an empty vessel makes the most noise, i believe that the truth is probably that the people described above are actually just the ones shouting most. i have a suspicion that all this shouting just covers the fact that most people don't have the time or the will to care any more.

all that "vitrol" is all there is, there is nothing else left. most of the people with the capability to form their own opinions have lost the will to do so and the others are dismissed as crackpots and cranks.

[edit on 27/8/09 by pieman]