Christianist Kitty Werthmann wants you to get your guns!
By John Amato Tuesday Sep 29, 2009 8:00amPhyllis Schlafly's How to Take Back America and Destroy it in the Process event this past weekend sure was chock full of nuts. What used to take place in the backrooms of the '90s militia-white power meetings is now on full display to America via the religious right and other assorted right-wing outfits. How sad this is happening to America at a time when the country and the world for that matter are struggling to get through the day. People are trying to find work, pay their bills and not go broke because of their lack of health insurance and now they are getting besieged by a stealth attack of Obama is Hitler garbage.
At the How To Take Back America Conference last weekend, conservative speaker Kitty Werthmann led a workshop called “How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists.” Announcing the panel in a column preceding the conference, talk show host Janet Porter gushed how Werthmann’s description of Austria in the 1930s is a “mirror to America” today — noting “They had Joseph Goebbels; we have Mark Lloyd, the diversity czar.” The room was packed over capacity to hear Werthmann, who grew up as a Christian in Austria and serves as Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum South Dakota President.
During her session, Werthmann went through a litany of examples of how President Obama is like Adolf Hitler. She noted that Hitler, who acted “like an American politician,” was “elected in a 100% Christian nation.” Although she failed to once mention Antisemitism or militarism, Werthmann explained how universal healthcare, an Equal Rights Amendment, and increased taxes were telltale signs of Nazism. Werthmann also warned the audience:
If we had our guns, we would have fought a bloody battle. So, keep your guns, and buy more guns, and buy ammunition. [...] Take back America. Don’t let them take the country into Socialism. And I refer again, Hitler’s party was National Socialism. [...] And that’s what we are having here right now, which is bordering on Marxism.
These freaks are preaching violence to the conservative base and it's sickening. Violence is spreading like wildfire in America (Just ask the Pittsburgh police after the Richard Poplawski incident) because of them even though they'll deny they had a hand in it like Bill O'Reilly did when Dr. Tiller was murdered. And there will always be a Juan Williams to defend their hate speak at every turn.
If you've forgotten how they operate just read this post and you'll cringe.
I think someone needs to alert the DHS about this since it falls within their guidelines on extremism. Watching Kitty speak just re-enforces the report and explains why the right freaked out over it when it initially became public.
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Do it. You have clout John.
sit down with this idiot...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/29/gop-...
These friggin traitorous repugs are pullin out all the stops.
is supposed to be my "representative." The second congressional district of AZ is a huge gerrymander that includes the west side urban Phoenix with areas hundreds of miles away in the heart of mor(m)on country north of the Grand Canyon.
He is a slime who uses pictures of cute baaabies on his campaign posters and has voted against EVERY SINGLE bill which provides medical help for poor children.
I'm guessing that some insurer paid dearly to fix Trent's cleft palate - but he's got his so screw everybody else.
I would love to see somebody investigate this filth.
I was told by his office to stop calling because I was "harrassing" his staff with my questions.
It is, apparently, illegal to ask a Republican politician why he voted in such a way.
That nutjobs like this are a small minority.
I like to remind them of that every chance I get.
Timothy McVeigh was a small minority. I suspect many of these people would consider him a hero.
These whackos think they have the numbers to mount a serious war against the government and the sensible people of the country.
It's not going to happen. They can't do it.
No, but they can blow-up a building and kill 200 people.
... by incidents like Waco and Ruby Ridge.
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Right wing wackos fear the government will take their Bibles and guns; the center and left fear the right wing wackos and demand that "something" be done about them. Law enforcement, ever eager to play cowboy and happy to have an excuse to do so, sets up sting operations on the most religious wackos with guns they can find. The wackos fear they will be killed so they don't give up. Law enforcement then kills them. This gives Tim McVeigh the moral imperative for mass murder.
All because of irrational fear.
False equivalence.
Being afraid of nuts with guns who actually say they'd love to kill me and mine is perfectly rational. Especially when that fear is kept in the perspective of political violence in this country. Lynch mobs and political assassinations aren't exactly ancient history in this country.
On the other hand what threat do we, the left, actually pose to them? No really go ahead, t hink about that for a second. With the exception of a few militant atheists (a tiny minority) - nobody gives a rats ass if you believe or don't, have a Bible or don't. We don't want you to *preach* in the *classroom* thankyouverymuch - but that's just part of that whole "Freedom of religion" thing in our Constitution.
And as for taking their guns - I think most people really just want some basic registration and accountability. The fact that the NRA is nucking futs and makes out any regulation for lethal weaponry seem like some obscene intrusion when really it's just plain common sense just makes it worse.
In other words: They're the ones who are afraid without rationale. We have a damn good reason to be afraid - they've given us a laundry list of reasons over the years.
Besides, even if it hadn't been for Waco or Ruby Ridge, a guy like McVeigh would have done something eventually. A couple of incidents cannot suddenly make a person go from rational adult to exploder of buildings. It just doesn't work that way. McVeigh would have found his excuse regardless.
So will these loons if nothing changes.
David Koresh and his followers (as well as Randy Weaver and his family) were religious nut cases who thought the government was trying to take their guns and kill them.
You can call them crazy; you can call them paranoid. And you'd be correct. But you certainly can't say they were wrong. Ruby Ridge and Waco validated these otherwise paranoid fears.
As for whether or not the Left's fear of gun ownership is rational: I would ask for some statistics on the huge rash of "assault weapon" killings which occurred after the demise of the assault weapons ban. It simply hasn't happened.
Finally, if "McVeigh would have found his excuse regardless," then aren't you making my point? Just what "change" will stop the "loons" if they're going to do whatever they're going to do regardless?
You can call them crazy; you can call them paranoid. And you'd be correct. But you certainly can't say they were wrong. Ruby Ridge and Waco validated these otherwise paranoid fears.
Waco was a mass suicide, and the whole kerfuffle kicked off because Koresh et al killed four ATF agents, and wounded 17 others. Nobody in history has shot at law enforcement and gotten out of trouble, so what exactly were they "not wrong" about?
I wouldn't call the death by fire of 76 people, including 20 children, a "kerfuffle." Also, the ATF conceived the attack as a publicity stunt to gain more government funding. The ATF unilaterally attacked the Branch Davidians. When the Davidians successfully fought them off, the FBI (along with US military units, which broke the law of Posse Comitatus) proceeded to provoke and attack the Davidians for days, preventing hostage negotiators from succeeding. The fire that killed them was likely started by the incendiary devices that the FBI initially denied they had used on the compound.
If the BD's were so concerned about their kids, why didn't they move them out of the compound and away from danger? (Because Koresh needed something to shag, maybe?)
And if you take issue with the term "kerfuffle", I'll take issue with your characterization of the BD's "fighting them off" as "successful". I'll say this again: You shoot at law enforcement, let alone kill some of them, you're in for a world of shit.
And this:
Also, the ATF conceived the attack as a publicity stunt to gain more government funding. The ATF unilaterally attacked the Branch Davidians.
makes me wonder how much time you spend with binoculars in your backyard looking for black helicopters. You're right to, nutzoid--they're coming for you....
They were worried that the government would move in to take their guns and kill them; the government moved in to take their guns and killed them.
Shitcan the condescension, son; you know damned well that the BD's brought it on themselves.
What exactly did they think was going to happen after shooting at them? "Oh, you sure showed us, boy howdy! We'll just move along, now." And if the ATF's search warrant ended up being bogus, all Koresh had to do was file a lawsuit.
And since you and NOYK are into conspiracy theories (the ATF wanted more funding? Fer fuxake!), how's this? Koresh and his followers knew that he'd be taken away on child molestation charges if the FBI investigated, so they decided to go down swinging. How much simpler can I make THAT?
"Attorney General Reno had specifically directed that no pyrotechnic devices be used in the assault. Between 1993 and 1999, FBI spokesmen denied (even under oath) the use of any sort of pyrotechnic devices during the assault; however, pyrotechnic Flite-Rite CS gas grenades had been found in the rubble immediately following the fire. In 1999, FBI spokesmen were forced to admit that they had used the grenades, however they claimed that these devices, which dispense CS gas through an internal burning process, had been used during an early morning attempt to penetrate a covered, water-filled construction pit 40 yards away, and were not fired into the building itself. According to FBI claims, the fires started approximately three hours after the grenades had been fired. When the FBI's documents were turned over to Congress for an investigation in 1994, the page listing the use of the pyrotechnic devices was missing. The failure for six years to disclose the use of pyrotechnics despite her specific directive led Reno to demand an investigation. A senior FBI official told Newsweek that as many as 100 FBI agents had known about the use of pyrotechnics, but no one spoke up until 1999."
....
"On May 12, less than a month after the incident, Texas state authorities bulldozed the site, rendering further gathering of forensic evidence impossible."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvKXDmr-O5Q
Have you been saving that?
Koresh and his cult were planning attacks to kill massive numbers of innocent people in order to force the gov't to attack them and hence initiate the end of the world.
The reason the gov't moved in was to grab them all before they could launch the waves of attacks.
Heck a number of the Branch Davidians have for years waited for his raising from the grave since they believe he is the Messiah. Thing is each time they say he will come back he hasn't.
http://dickstaub.com/links_view.php?record_id...
http://www.religioustolerance.org/dc_branc2.h...
The ATF was there to execute a search warrant (ATF = Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms).
I have little doubt that, after burning dozens of women and children alive, the government would come up with as many apocalyptic excuses as possible - but those were not the accusations at the time. They only had probable cause to believe Koresh did not have the proper paper work for his guns.
The dozens of women and children horribly murdered by the government were suspected of nothing.
The NRA knows exactly what it is doing: manipulating the emotionally unstable, mentally ill, ignorant and intellectually dull-witted to oppose any legislation that will cut into the profits of the gun lobby. The NRA is doing what the insurance lobby and all those other corporate pig lobbies do: manipulate idiots and buy corrupt politicians.
Everything in the obsolete and failing capitalist United States is about PROFIT, no matter what the human cost around the world--and even within our own borders. And that is exactly why the nations of the world will eventually destroy the United States in a carpet of overlapping thermonuclear fireballs. Good riddance.
The teabagger Republican rednecks don't stand a chance. The real power in the United States is concentrated in the cities of the left and right coasts and, of course, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Start your new civil war, neocons and make our day.
>That nutjobs like this are a small minority.
Doesn't seem that from the outside when you look at the US seems like most are that way inclined. I dare say this is just the extreme of a country that is mostly far right compared to the world anyway.
Then again the US supported Nazi Germany for years while the allies were supporting them, and then opened their arms after the war to all the ones they could irrespective of their history as long as they could bring profit to the US.
people living under the Nazis or the Communists, needed help to realise that they were living under the Nazi's and Communists.
If anyone need "help to realize they're living under Nazis or Communists," just how bad is living under those two boogy-men if you can't tell it is any different than living under the perverted U.S. capitalists the moron teabaggers apparently love?
We should have these people under survelliance, as potential domestic terrorists, although that will like just re-affirm their beliefs.
I hope these groups and people get their ass sued like the Aryan Nations did if anything ever happens. They are playing with fire that they themselve may be held responsible.
These people WILL NOT STOP!! And I talked to several wing-nuts who say this has been in the works since Clinton. It was just put on hold while Bush was in to see if he implimented the Christian States of America.
Like my redneck friends used to say, "The South will Rise Again!"
Be warned all Dems and liberals, they WILL get violent. It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when.
if they think we are all pushovers or afraid of them they should think twice. I'm usually quite nice and pleasant, but
after they are on the wrong end of National Guard guns, they will crawl back to their trailers.
earn handsome livings as "publishers-bloggers" if we all just bought and kept current with the latest Windows OS's.
"The Information Economy"
woulda, coulda, shoulda happened but GWB was proud of the fact that he couldn't use the email. With that in the White House is it any wonder the tech bubble burst?
You know, it's very simple for these clods to take their country back. In the next election just have more of your voters than the fascists and nazis have of theirs. Bingo! You've got your country back. Until then, stfu.
How on dog's green planet have these folks moved beyond the lunatic fringe?
the lunatic fringe?
That's easy: The MSM, lead by Fux.
The historical inaccuracies here just boggle the mind. The rhetoric from these people extolling national preeminence, values, and sovereignty are *in fact* the same appeals made by the National Socialists in the 20's and 30's. There must be some clinical term for their pathological need to vilify the opposition for actions taken by them.
was a socialist. What a bunch of stoopid, stoopid people.
I wish they'd all move to Texas, then secede. THEN I'd be up for the US bombing a foreign country into the stone age, it would match their mentality.
Just joking, of course, but the absolute idiocy of these people gives me unhealthy fantasies like that some times...
projection
!
Terrorism has a new face - it isn't the muslim extremists we need to worry about in this country.
Are brown-skinned people, with Obama as the prime example, going to become the new "jews" in xtian merka?
Talk about a persecution complex ...
These clowns are convinced the only thing wrong with the world is EVERYTHING.
It's an activist judiciary, an incompetent government, a liberal media, the gays/lesbians, the pagans, the socialists/fascists/communists/Islamic jihadists ... the list never ends.
I submit this is going to be like the old adage about boiling a lobster. As the violence happens in small, 'isolated' incidents, we become desensitized to it. We're already to the point where Glenn Beck draws a yawn from some people.
This country was fucked a long time ago. We're just circling the drain.
Do some of these people who attend these functions -- you know people who might be your neighbors or even family members -- realize that what these people are advocating is a second civil war?
Some of my extended family are well into this nutbaggery ridiculousness, and I realize that they are just frightened and scared. They would never really resort to violence because if they did they would be fighting their own family, their own loved ones. But, I don't know now.
What I do know is that this rhetoric is completely irresponsible and someone needs to be an adult and say, "Enough!"
We have free, responsible speech in America. Just like a person can't yell, "Fire!" falsely in a crowded movie theater without facing criminal prosecution, a person can't spew fallacious rhetoric that promotes violence against a nation's own President and citizens. I would think that speech that incited civil strife or war under a false premise would be prosecuted and rightfully so.
Something needs to be done about this whole situation.
We need people like the articulate guest Rachel Maddow has on regularly to expose the hypocrisy of these religious extremists. You can not be a Christian and promote violence, I don't care how hard they try to justify it.
You can't be "pro-life" and advocate violence.
A lot of this hypocritical rhetoric is acceptable because so many people are grossly ignorant of facts. For instance, I just received an email from my Aunt that decried a Christian minister for fasting during Ramadan because the minister wanted to better understand Islam and its holy days. The email said that this idea of wanting to understand another religion was "dangerous."
This is what we are up against -- people who believe that empathy and understanding of differing viewpoints is dangerous. They willfully choose ignorance even though they have the ability to understand and learn.
The question for me becomes how does one counteract willful ignorance because I don't even understand the rationale that would even advocate such a thing.
Is she talking about a right wing utopia?
This lady refuses to accept what she cannot control and label it as evil, and yet she flatulates on about her personal sacred utopia as if the rest of us should follow blindly as if all of the answers to modern life can be vetted through the pages of one book..........now that is crazy-mad utopian bullshit.
Last time I checked, part of the reason the Germans had a grudge against Europe was because it used their country as a back-yard for their frequent Christian-related wars of succession and imperialism up until WW1, and then paid them back for losing with them with a hefty reparations fee. And the Germans were actually cutting ties with Christianity long before Hitler, because they saw how fucking backward it had made their neighbors. And hell, half the reason that Hitler was able to stay in power as long as he did was because Christians outside of Germany felt the same way about Jews as he did.
since long before the Teutonic Knights. I expect the French, Poles, Austrians and Italians might have a problem with your characterization of the Germans as victims, particularly after Frederick the Great, Bismarck and the Second Reich.
As for "Christians outside of Germany" feeling the same way about Jews--not so much. The Danes saved 95% of Danish Jews from the Nazis, and thousands of christians in all other German-invaded countries risked their own lives to save Jews.
So I guess it's just you who think Germany has been victimized and Hitler was right. Thanks for stopping by, wingnut.
by Catholic armies of the Habsburgs Empire under Maxmillian in the first half of the 17th century.
Look up the Thirty Years War. The Swedes marched in and kicked the Empire's ass.
lots of other people, but the German principalities caused plenty of death on their own, particularly in the 19th century. Bismarck's wars against France and Austria come to mind, for example, as well as Germany's decision to create their own overseas empire on the corpses of Africans and Asians.
To be fair, this:
And hell, half the reason that Hitler was able to stay in power as long as he did was because Christians outside of Germany felt the same way about Jews as he did.
could have been more artfully put (especially by adding the phrase "too many" before "Christians") but it's largely correct. Denmark's citizens had balls the size of Jupiter, definitely, but anti-Semitism was pretty well entrenched in Europe centuries before Hitler and he capitalized on that LAMF. Vichy France was just one example. You don't need to be a wingnut to know that.
much to do with Hitler's staying in power, any more than christians outside of the US had anything to do with Bush staying in power. Hitler stayed in power through the support or acceptance of too many Germans, as well as the accedence of too many European governments who wanted to avoid war. But what really kept Hitler in power was the money and material support from corporations all over the world. Prescott Bush knew a lot about that. Hitler's regime would never have lasted without the support of Ford, IBM, and many other "businessmen."
You think the material help and moral support from those other countries in Europe with loads of anti-Semites in their populations didn't help Hitler keep his position? And you don't think some of these anti-Semites were quite adamant that their governments give Hitler a free hand, because they were cheering on his handling of the "Jewish problem"?
You really should re-think that.
The Catholic Church was all to willing to let the Jews die except for some children it could brainwash into becoming Catholics. Many Nazis escaped Europe due to the Catholic Church helping them. Christians supported Hitler especially in the US. If Hitler hadn't declared war as a Japan ally Roosevelt wouldn't have been able to have the US fight Germany like Roosevelt was long wanting to do.
Hitler was a Catholic and declared himself to be as did many of the Nazi party.
How sad this is happening to America at a time when the country and the world for that matter are struggling to get through the day
which is the perfect time for uber-nationalistic/religious cults to grow and thrive. and there are legions of charlatans ready, willing and able to take advantage of people's fear and desperation.
harkens back to obama's "cling" PR disaster. he was right.
It is hard to reconcile that these "greatest country in the history of the world" people are as ignorant as medieval peasants....
Eisenhower must be rolling in his grave at the numbers of unalert and unknowledgeable citizens.
Then they can stand in line....which begins with the Aa'nanin and ends at the Zuni...
While waiting they can do The Ghost Dance.
they would have absolutely no idea what you are alluding to as they rant about "illegals" and taking back "their" country. It's a shame there is no vaccine for crazy and/or stupid.
The George Tiller shooting, the Holocaust Museum shooting, the Binghamton immigration center shooting, and now that census worker. How deep do the bodies have to pile up before these shitheads start taking responsibility for their own rhetoric?
... that these are isolated incidents perpetrated by lone wackos, and we accept that the instigators, the Becks and O'Reilly's and Malkins and Limbaughs and Pragers, are held blameless ...
... then it will continue to happen, and continue to spiral upwards.
At this point, I'm not even sure that a child getting trampled at a 'tea party' would snap people out of their cult-like behavior.
the church shooting in KY and the Honduras students shot in their dorm in FL.
2/26/2009
Walton "Minister" Shoots and Kills 2, Wounds 3 More
Snip - Baker is a former Republican campaign volunteer, but he alarmed party officials last year when he sent "radical" e-mails. They passed them on to the Walton County Sheriff's Office.
[ http://www.keyboarddetective.com/2009/02/walt... ]
And central and northern FL are really just extensions of Georgialabama. With a name like Dannie Roy, expect trouble.
→ http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/flori...
You don't normally miss the news down there. Did you forget? I've had it on the back burner so to speak, along with the African American wearing the Obama shirt in [TN]? The one that got roughed up in that gas station... pre-election.
Wait, you get free child care under socialism? From highly trained child psychologists? Now is this indoctrination different than the pledge of allegiance and learning how great the founding fathers are and America is?
Sounds pretty good to me.
Werthmann went through a litany of examples of how President Obama is like Adolf Hitler. She noted that Hitler, who acted “like an American politician,” was “elected in a 100% Christian nation.
Austria was and still is notoriously Jew-hating. It used to be said that even Austrian Jews are anti-Semites.
Did anyone else note the irony of her making this statement?
A 100% Christian nation is exactly what she and the other far right extreme are trying to get.
weren't there?
So I dunno about the 100% Christian rate ;-)
Hitler was not elected by a majority of citizens -- as I recall he received around 35% of the vote. After the Reichstag fire he gained more power by riding (and creating) a popular wave of anti-communist sentiment.
So the riechstadt fires were Hitler's 9/11? So GWB is more like Hitler than Obama?
I am not a big fan of Hitler analogies. One could argue that Hitler's use the the Richstag fire historically paralleled Nero's use the great fire in Rome. Leaders often use crises to push through certain policies -- for better or worse. In fact, one can fault Obama for not making good use of the financial crises to push through banking and market reforms. I find the use of Hitler in the public debate both fascinating and sickening.
and blamed on communists; it was an excuse for the Nazis to claim that they were acting to protect Germany from a communist takeover. It enabled Hitler to suspend many civil liberties in Germany, suppress his political rivals, and eventually become dictator. Sound familiar?
Also ironic is that when debates between christians and atheists occur sometimes, there will inevitably be the christian argument that Hitler was an atheist (to counter the argument that more people have been killed or maimed or tortured by christianity than any war, or all wars combined even). Hitler was not an atheist, by the way. He was many things, but atheist was not one of them.
So, stating that Hitler was elected by a 100% christian Germany is more than ironic. This seems to be typical pick and choose rhetoric from delusional people like this Kitty woman.
spoke at this right-wing droolathon and called the President
"an enemy of humanity."
I am so embarrassed and ANGRY....
As much as we hated bush, I can't recall reps calling a sitting President such crap while on the public dime.
(OK, maybe some called cheney some names along those lines...)
I wonder if she recommends killing just anybody. Or if she means it's ok to kill the opposition. I need her to guide my morality.
..just kill themselves? They have enough guns to assure they'll be with Jesus in 5 minutes..
Most Christians believe committing suicide prevents one from being welcomed into Heaven.
that assures an all access VIP seat in 'Heaven"
'cause he's a poor money manager.
no?
... because it's my understanding that the only unforgivable sin is to deny the existence of god. All the other sins can be forgiven by accepting jeebus as your personal savior. Or am I wrong?
But then again, if a person had not accepted jeebus as their personal savior before committing suicide, then maybe they would not be allowed into eternal boredom with a bunch of subservient 'souls' in the fairytale afterlife called heaven.
I don't know.
I think it was Julian the Apostate (last Pagan Emperor of Rome), or possibly Diocletian who complained about the Christians making problems for the State to hurry their death by executions, thereby achieving a martyr's crown in Heaven, "Have they no ropes of their own, or precipices to throw themselves from?"
I've heard he's very understanding and nice, but even Jesus has limits.
Hitler was never elected with 98% of the vote. that's nonsense. even when he was chanceller he only won ~40% of the vote.
I guess we really can't expect her to get it right. She was in Austria during the election anyway. There was no 24 hour news cycle back then either.
Why she is not upset that a foreign force seized control of her Austria and occupied it? This would seem more to the tune of what Bush and neocons set in motion.
and physical prevention by the SA of Hitler's political opponents from voting. In reality, the Nazis would have had about 30% of the vote, or approximately the same number of Americans who supported Bushco and these losers. So the mental disorder known as right-wing authoritarianism apparently afflicts the same number of the population, at least in these two cases.
Sounds to me that the Christians want to be just like the gun toting middle eastern militant Muslims..Do the Christians want america to be like parts of the middle east, where anyone can carry an AK-47?
The relentless American conflating of Nazis/fascism and communism still blows my mind (and I know this woman is of Austrian extraction, but she wouldn't have an audience in Europe). Anyone who knows history knows that communists were one of the first groups Hitler and other fascist leaders targeted for elimination. Communism and fascism are not only different, they are diametrically opposed, Stalin notwithstanding.
Of course I know the problem arises from decades of Americans being told that both are "authoritarian" and therefore equivalent, but even that's meaningless. And it's not only the far right that has a problem with this in the US; the whole country is ignorant on these issues. Aaaaahhhhh!
nothing to improve upon this trend.
Ofcourse not since most home schooling curriculums have Christo-fascist undertones mixed in
Since many of these right wingers (in particular their leaders) possess an astounding level of ignorance, intelligent debate is an impossibility.
These people really believe communism, fascism and socialism are all one in the same.....
Plus most of them reject science in favor of religious superstition.....
They are actually PROUD to be ignorant, hence their admiration for the likes of Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin...
They are actually PROUD to be ignorant
That is true. A Texas science teacher friend of mine recently told me that fellow teachers and administration seem to consider knowledge a threat to their authority, and many American Christians are taught that knowledge and learning are suspect because such things could diminish their faith. And as someone raised in a right-wing Texas family, I cannot tell you how frustrating it was to have any attempt at intelligent conversation come to a grinding halt with accusations that the more informed party "thinks he/she is better than everybody else!" or "has an answer for everything!" said in tones of outrage.
I would also add that they divide knowledge into good and bad knowledge, as exemplified in the story of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I would say most wingers don't have a problem with kids dissecting frogs or reading The Count of Monte Cristo. The problems arise when the knowledge or facts contradict their own ideology and religion. They happily digest the "good" knowledge and actively eschew the "bad." I told someone it would be like if I decided that only even pages were the "right" pages to read in a book, magazine, etc and odd pages were "bad." If I did this, I would only gain a partial understanding of things and miss a lot of important information. But, this is what the right is advocating, and people are willingly doing this type of thing. It makes no sense, and I am really at a loss for how to counteract willful ignorance.
Anyone have any ideas?
A start to ending the dominance of religion in public policy would be for ALL 'closeted' atheists to come out and declare themselves as such. I am proud to be an atheist and never miss the opportunity to make it known.
Another step in the right direction would be to more openly oppose religious influence in public policy. We need a seat at the table. I think the more that people come out and declare themselves as non-religious, agnostic, atheist, humanist, etc., the more momentum there will be to at least get religion out of politics and government.
I don't know, I'm at a loss as well.
These people prize blind faith above all else. And they are indoctirnated from birth that knowledge, intelligence, science are all bad (unless used for bible study or apologetics).
Well there's also totalitarian.
And technically universal healthcare, an Equal Rights Amendment, and increased taxes was the result of Kaiser Wilhelm, trying to head off a populist Communist uprising. Nazi's were dead opposed to Communism, because they thought it mitigated against the "heroic" nature that they idealized.
In other words, they were arguing for self-accountability. Sound familiar?
I looked it up, German women got the vote in 1918 which I think was the last before the Weimar Republic started.
Hitler didn't get voted Chancellor of Germany until 1933, 15 years later.
That's the wingnut way.
Thousands and thousands of Socalists, Social Democrats, Communists and trade-unionists were murdered and put into concentration camps by the Nazis.
Equating 'socialism' with Nazism is nothing short of desecrating the memory of these victims. Victimized for no other reason than being opposed to the Nazis. (Which German conservatives notably weren't. Or was von Papen a left-winger now?!)
It's spitting on the face of the German people as well. They've had quite a few Social Democratic governments since the war. You think the Germans don't know the difference? Who do you think knows more about Nazis - Michele Bachmann or the millions of Germans who voted for Willy Brandt in the 50's and 60's?
(Kitty Werthmann, OTOH, is not of that generation. She was apparently born in 1926 and moved to the USA in 1950. She'd have been 12 years old at the time of the Anschluß and still a teenager when the war was over. Without any real experience of pre-Nazi or post-Nazi German/Austrian society, she's got no context.)
... but I would have known she was nuts even before reading this. Why? When an ancient female (she must be at least 70) goes by "Kitty" it speaks volumes.
Hey, old coot! This ain't the 1950s anymore! You ain't a sweet young thang, the belle of Biloxi, Miss.! Grow up!
Though it was originally a derivation of Katherine, Kitty was actually a popular given name in the mid-20th century, when this woman was likely born. She was probably named that by her parents, in which case there's no reason to hold that against her. We've got plenty of substantive issues to hold her in contempt for; let's not focus on superficial ones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVS7zr01wHg
She was born in '26 apparently. 'Kitty' was introduced as a popular name (part of a wave of English names/nicknames) in Germany/Scandinavia after WWI, and stayed fairly popular until the 1950's.
The fiction character Nancy Drew was renamed "Kitty Drew" in Sweden, as it was a trendier name at that time.
Christianazis.
Thought you might like to see a comment I made a week ago on a related suject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeguOPBE-vs
I just watch this and HALLELUJAH I'm cured!
At last someone acknowledged I exist.
I haven't been the same since a college class in philosophy I took years ago, when were all asked to prove our own existence.
I would have just flatulated heartily at the podium, and then sat back down.
Don't know if that would have proved anything other than I had recently ingested legumes of one type or another.
But it would have made me laugh.
... from the famed philosopher Renee' DeFartes?
Farto.
Curses! Foiled Again!!!!
ue, 09/29/2009 - 11:10 — liberalNmoderation
Could be just methane gas from a swamp
Or Willie Nelson.
Is he prone to flatulence?
I had no idea!
Where do you think he (and his guests) got inspiration for The Party's Over?
Um, no Kitty, you would have been one of the ones CHEERING. You can't rewrite the way you are to fit the needs of the moment. Once a right wing fascist, always a right wing fascist.
And of course, 100% Christian nation! Tell it to the folks in the ovens.
Oh, those weren't people, right?
I have never met an Austrian who was not a Fritzl material on some level. And I have met a lot of them.
Bush material on some level.
Phyllis Schlafly's How to Take Back America and Destroy it in the Process event this past weekend sure was chock full of nuts.
___________________________________________________________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqMzoNuye0U
be getting in on this "take back America" crusade?
Apu Nahasapeemapetilon?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons...
Funny thing, my grandfather looked a lot like him, albeit with shorter whiter hair and complexion, but same sort of face.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1y9BIjTSVk&fe...
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=M...
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=M...
These are the people that make ME afraid for my second amendment rights. I'm not worried about liberals. I'm not worried about the government. I'm worried about some jackass listening to this, going out and doing something so horrific that even I have to agree we need more controls.
I own several guns. But, I'm probably not a 'true' gun owner, just like I'm not a 'real' Christian, as far as these people are concerned.
"I can haz straitjakket??"
doesn't want to let you see vet.
but kitteh really need her medz ...
And these wingnuts ARE the Nazis.
If they want to attract attention to this fact then let them - peacefully.
Guns should be Restricted
Miss Werthmann, Hitler was not "elected by a Christian nation", because he wasn't elected by a majority of Germans, ever.
Jeebus, why am I not surprised that a right-wing loon misrepresents history?
all 6000 years of it ...
The shameful words and actions of so many on the right that suggest the propriety of violence against our fairly elected President border on treason. They on the other hand, see it as patriotism in some twisted way.
... group to follow Hitler, and the one that stuck with him till the end was a ........ "CHRISTIAN" German party.
All those Hitler/Obama posters the bitter baggers are so fond of.
All projection, baby.
They are just waiting for their next, great, white hope to follow.
Someone, Beck-like, who doesn't tear up so easily.
It will be easy to recognize Nazis. They will be supported by the Bush family as they were during WWll.
The Nazis were singling out and eliminating diversity and Obama's appointed a "czar" to promote diversity.
Slight difference. I'd be curious to see how diverse her audience was.
Mizz Kitty, where's Marshal Dillon?
Show me where the left has taken your guns?
the right complains of socialism
when both sides are really complaining about the same thing
but just seeing a different angle of the same picture
combine the two and you have
corporatism
While they blather on about using their guns on other Americans they're afraid of (specifically meaning poor blacks and Mexicans), soldiers (mostly poor blacks and Mexicans) are fighting and dying in other countries because they were afraid of "the terr-rists."
America's not the Home of the Brave. It's the Home of the Fat, Lazy and Paranoid.
A wingnut with a gun urging other wingnuts to buy more - that sort of extremism fostered by Kitty along with Glen Beck et al is funny on the surface - but the undercurrent is a matter of real concern - at some stage people will have to stop laughing and genuinely challenge the urgings of those paranoid people
... we won't repeat the mistake we made the last time. Not a single teabagger Republican will be left.
Silly me. I don't remember Hitler being homosexuality's biggest fan and there might still be a concentration camp survivor or two alive who would beg to differ. If "equal" includes women, I though producing strong Aryan babies was job #1 for them under the Reich.
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