Sure, they have their bigots, and probably more than they'd admit. But there's also a fair number of just plain old wingnuts. Either believing everything the echo machine tells them, and/or affiliated with one of the wacko Larouche style groups.

I'm still waiting for one of them to explain to me how Obama is taking away their "liberties". Haven't had much success at it yet.

Heck, ask them the right questions and they can never answer. But that doesn't dissuade them, of course, since logic isn't heir strong suit. Nor history. Nor even the truth about the deficit:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/06/09...

but they'll find a way to blame the Left, Obama's long form BC, Death panels and the Kennedys for all of their woes.

Thing is they are TOO indoctrinated to realise that it's their own fault.

before this rumor goes viral.

GOP: Reformed Health Care System Could Discriminate Against Republicans!

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/go...

Recently, the Republican National Committee mailed out a survey to an unknown number of voters--including at least one non-Republican--spreading misinformation about the Democrats' health care reform proposal.

The most egregious question: "It has been suggested that the government could use voter registration to determine a person's political affiliation, prompting fears that GOP voters might be discriminated against for medical treatment in a Democrat-imposed health care rationing system. Does this possibility concern you?"

Of course, this hasn't been suggested except in the minds of the GOP officials who drafted these questions.

Pitied? They make their own daily decisions and I have no pity for them for the decisions they have and are making. Will you still feel pity if one of these people decides to do something foolish and deadly? They are being stoked to do just that.

Actually, Peter, I agree, but with a caveat: These are ordinary Americans whose anger is real, but the resentments being tapped into are not fresh but very old.

I've written about this:

The right-wing media have been aghast at the unpleasant realities being reported about all those shouters and disruptors at town-hall forums -- namely, that their anger is being ginned up by corporate interests using right-wing populists to derail their political opponents; and that their ranks are riddled with extremists.

And to the extent that the critics of these protesters try to portray the scenes as purely a product of corporate machinations, they have a point. There is real anger out there, and the anti-reform interests are successfully tapping into it.

But the anger they're tapping into is not a new thing; in fact, it's been around a long time. It's a larger anger at the federal government, stoked (as we've seen in the health-care debate) by a combination of real grievances and a pathological belief in explanations for those grievances that are provably untrue, wrapped in paranoid conspiracy theories about government officials and a conspiracist view of history.

In the 1990s, they called themselves militias or "Patriots." Nowadays, they're organizing around the so-called "tea parties" and now the health-care town halls. These are the wellspring of the anger at these meetings -- but this faction has a long history of being motivated by anger anyway.

This is not to downplay the vital role behind the scenes being played by ostensibly mainstream conservative operations, fueled by corporate money. Adele Stan at AlterNet has a thoroughly devastating expose of the machinations behind the protests, beginning with Dick Armey's FreedomWorks operation all the way down to the Birther nutcases who are bubbling up at these shows.

Indeed, Stan gets what the rest of the media are missing: Not only are business and conservative interests ginning up these protests, but they're doing so by empowering far-right extremists from the fringe.

Teabaggers are ordinary Americans who have learned to self-administer a powerful and addicting drug: right-wing propaganda.