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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The crazies are taking over!














World War II Memorial - Red Square

Europeans generally don’t understand Americans and think that America is a strange country full of very strange people. There are some good reasons for the way they think.

I have just finished reading a book called ‘Wingnuts’ by John Avlon of the Daily Beast. This is a fascinating book about the fringe dwellers on both the left and the right in the USA and the crazy worlds they inhabit.

He talks about Bush Derangement Syndrome and Obama Derangement Syndrome and about the ‘Truthers’ (The 9/11 attacks were carried out by the USA) and the ‘Birthers’ (President Obama was not born in the USA).

He quoted a few figures in there about what Republicans believe and this prompted a Harris Poll which confirmed some really scary things about Republicans:

“Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama: Two-thirds think he's a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim—and 24 percent say "he may be the Antichrist."

To anyone who thinks the end of the health-care vote means a return to civility, wake up.

Obama Derangement Syndrome—pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism—has infected the Republican Party. Here's new data to prove it:

• 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.

• 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim

• 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"

• 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"

• Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

You can read the full story at the Daily Beast and the Harris Poll details have been published across the media.

See, Europeans see this and scratch their heads and say 'why would anyone think that President Obama was not born in the USA. You cannot BE President unless you are born in the USA'

(Much the the dismay of Austrians who would like Arnold Schwarzenegger to be President).

Europeans generally believe that something should make sense if it is to be believed (although they do of course, like most others, make an exception for religion).

Now I think all this stuff is amazing, scary - and immensely entertaining - but if I was an American I would be seriously worried about where the country is going.

I know only sane and intelligent Americans read my Blog and I think you had better start doing something about this stuff or it will be curtains for all of us.

6 comments:

  1. First off, I'm not sure I believe these figures. The Daily Beast is a bit of a sensationalist rag (saying that, I haven't looked at the poll). Secondly, what exactly would you propose we do? We managed to elect a sane president (not an easy task mind you) and I'm not sure what good that has done other than allow me to travel overseas without being stoned.

    I would love to cede the South, think they would agree, have suggested it far and wide, but no one seems to be taking my suggestion seriously. I honestly don't know the cure for stupidity when, as with some unmanaged forms of mental illness, it eschews the very thing that would cure it.

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  2. Hey - travelling overseas without being stoned is a good start. And I know there is nothing you can do when people are this crazy. The poll is a Harris Poll - not a Daily Beast one.

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  3. If only we could load them all on a boat and ship them off somewhere, I don't know where, to a vast and unforgiving land at the other end of the world...

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  4. I think you're seeing the glass half-empty, Badger. Look at it this way:

    1. 33% don't believe Obama is a socialist.
    Okay, I'll give you this one. 67% is damned high. But let's wait and see if these people turn down their Social Security checks when they hit retirement age. Or burn their library cards, and take their kids out of public schools.

    2. 43% know that Obama is not a Muslim.
    The opposing group live in the Bible Belt, I'm sure. Across the street from me.

    3. 55% understand that Obama was born in the U.S.
    The other camp hasn't yet addressed the issue of their candidate, John McCain, being born in Panama, which wasn't any part of the U.S. at the time. Hawaii is a state, for crying out loud.

    4. 62% DON'T buy the Hitler card.
    They attach that honor to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

    5. 76% DON'T think Obama is the Antichrist.
    They think the other 24% are just plain insane folks who still live in the dark ages.

    As for what we can do, I agree with kbxmas. We voted and the MAJORITY won. Don't forget that the news plays up the negativity, not the hope. Besides, I've done my time with my fist in the air; my arm got tired sometime in 1978.

    As for traveling oversees, I wouldn't condone doing it stoned. Foreign prisons are scary places. I just drink on the jet.

    ;^)

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  5. Enjoy Tuscany. I'm looking forward to your photos when you return.

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  6. I would like to hire you to write emails that I can forward to my in-laws in answer to their back-woods, redneck, trailer trash, biggoted, racist,judgemental, hypocritical,ridiculous, propaganda. Are you available?

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