Lots of good commentary on the Benghazi! hearings, but this may be the best:
In the 21st century, we see the paranoid style honed to near-perfection among a significant cadre of Americans – predominantly male and Southern, and almost entirely white – who are ideologically and geographically exiled from their own society but who see themselves, paradoxically or otherwise, as its spiritual inheritors and most ardent defenders. They perceive themselves surrounded on all sides, at home as around the world, by murderous, treasonous and corrosive anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism (and in many cases also by anti-white racism and anti-Christian bigotry). They discern those forces at work in the Democratic Party and the big cities and multiculturalism and Planned Parenthood and “political correctnessâ€; in the spread of mosques and taco trucks and ambiguous gender assignments; in Black Lives Matter and the still-baffling black president with the funny name, in the stagnant or declining real incomes of the last several decades and the fact that the mightiest military superpower in the history of the world has not conclusively won a war since 1945.
What Benghazi promised the paranoid faithful, or still promises – we can’t presume that one embarrassing hearing will bring an end to this charade – was a chance to turn the tide, to strip the scales from the eyes of their benighted and deluded fellow countrymen and reveal the scope of the hideous plot to destroy America. For the conspiratorial right-wing hive mind, Benghazi is the gate and the key to the gate, like H.P. Lovecraft’s ancient and indescribable entity Yog-Sothoth. But as with the One-in-All and All-in-One of the Lovecraftian universe, opening that gate leads only to madness and oblivion: What lies beyond is the “amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity,†otherwise known as the legislative agenda of the House Freedom Caucus.
Yet there’s more — here’s Krugman:
 As Rick Perlstein pointed out several years ago, the modern conservative movement is in large part a “strategic alliance of snake-oil vendors and conservative true believers†with “a cast of mind that makes it hard for either them or us to discern where the ideological con ended and the money con began.â€
So goldbuggism, for example, is intimately tied to direct-marketing schemes for gold coins and gold certificates. I’ve been getting mail from the American Seniors Association, which bills itself as a conservative alternative to the AARP; sure enough, it’s a for-profit enterprise whose goal is to sell me insurance. And so on.
This is surely a much more important part of our political story than almost anyone acknowledges. I don’t think you can understand the depth of Obama- and Hillary-hatred without understanding just how much of it is generated by scammers out to make a buck off the racism and misogyny of some — sad to say, fairly many — older white men.
Avarice and paranoia, perfect together.
“Avarice and paranoia, perfect together.”
Yes, like bitter unprocessed chocolate with tiny steel shards, and e-coli tainted peanutbutter.
The Barbarians aren’t at the gates – they’re in local, district, state, and national legislatures.
And these supposedly “Christian” vipers have millions of angry, stupid, ignorant, bitter and bigoted minion lemmings who will support and follow them into the deadly and cold sea, sweeping along the rest of us with them.
If the last one who drowns is one of the bitter and bigoted rubes, his/her last thought will be, “AT LAST, VICTORY IS OURS!!!”
Also, too – ‘heart of darkness, meets ‘darkness of heart.’
Gulag…I see you are feeling better…and you are a poet….
Thanks!
Hopefully, I’ll be back home mid-week.
“Hopefully, I’ll be back home mid-week.”
What good news! My spouseperson was hospitalized & then rehabbed for about 5 weeks this past winter. It’s a drag.
Yeas, if you’re Ann Coulture or even all of Fox, Mark Levin, the money is there to keep slinging the same BS. If I could write a poorly researched and tho’t out book and make millions. And then a year or two later simply put a new cover on the same book and make millions more, I’d do it. Liberals demand a little more, however. My mother in law, who is 82, was asking me about investing a lot of her retirement in gold because she had heard that it was a good investment. I know where she heard that, of course. I told her how certain people hype the investment of gold to drive up the price so they can make money off of it. And how now that the price per ounce has plummet they are pushing even harder to get back some of their investment. She wasn’t sure if she believed me but did say, “Well, if that’s true then that’s awful”. I said it is and they are. She had a hard time believing me because she couldn’t imagine anyone being that dishonest. I tho’t but didn’t say, that’s your current Republican Party.
Glad you’re getting home soon, Gulag. Looking forward to reading some of your more in depth comments, shall we say. Always great reads.
BlueLoom,
You ain’t kiddin’!
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
So what is to be done with these miscreants who might feel somewhat uncomfortable with the government-sanctioned political correctness of the times? Forced “re-education?” Exile to Texas? Is escape possible?
” I’ve been getting mail from the American Seniors Association, which bills itself as a conservative alternative to the AARP; sure enough, it’s a for-profit enterprise”
No doubt, they “help” their members by advocating for SS privatization and “malpractice reform” (the republican anodyne for the rising costs of healthcare).
I’m still waiting for my Iraqi dinars to rebound in value..When they do I’ll be bumping elbows with the likes of Buffet, Bezo, and Gates.
People are so funny about gold. It happened to be attractive, durable and easy to work with, so it was a good choice to make coinage. It was also rare enough to make counterfeiting difficult. But, it’s real value came from being an agreed upon medium of exchange. We have such a deeply rooted sense that it has unassailable intrinsic value. But, I suppose if enough people believe it, it might as well be true.
Coincidently, we have a couple gold bearing streams on our property. NC was the main source for gold before the California strike. There was a gold mine just a few hundred yards from our house. I always promise myself that I’ll dig out my father’s old prospecting manuals and give it a whirl with a sluicebox or something. But, so far I have always put it off until the winter sets in. I may kick myself someday.
If my comments start coming from the Loire Valley, you’ll know I struck it rich.
I think Goatherd is right. Gold’s real value is the agreed upon method of exchange. It is beautiful, catches the eye, doesn’t tarnish and has been of value way back to the Egyptians, maybe before. Although they used it for decoration purposes only. I think it also is useful in conducting electricity. Other than that, it has no useful value. It is a very soft metal but we all like it. Well, I do, so I guess I should speak for myself. However, I have seen King Tut’s mask. It takes the breath away. Maybe that is its real value. Do we really use it as a method of exchange anymore? I have heard that Fort Knox is empty and we can’t carry gold around in our pockets. So, what good is it really? The Aztecs thought white people were crazy to be so obsessed with it. I know I am always looking for the more subtle, spiritual reason for something but is it possible gold has some spiritual purpose? If so, what is it? I will not be offended if y’all tell me how crazy I am.