Caught my eye

March 19, 2005 11:27 AM

Whoa!I'm not a big fan of GWB or the Iraq debacle but that might be going a bit far. (found here) It does make me think how odd it is to have nuts on what you consider the correct side of an issue. Pedantic idiocy aside, it seems that in a broader sense the left and the right have to deal with their own nuts. At what point do the fringes sabotoge the main message?
posted by Smedleyman (37 comments total)

What's that first site say? It's in some kind of furn gibberish.
posted by casu marzu at 11:32 AM on March 19, 2005

Am I going to be sent to Guantanamo for looking at that first site?
posted by papakwanz at 11:34 AM on March 19, 2005

As a fer instance, I used to be NRA. Somewhere it stopped being about shooting & insurance & safety programs and started being more about Jesus and which political candidates to vote for. At least in the letters I'd been getting.
posted by Smedleyman at 11:39 AM on March 19, 2005

Both the left and right have their respective fringe nutcases. The thing about rightie nutcases, though, is that kind of rhetoric has been creeping closer to the mainstream (see Savage, Michael), while the sort of nonsence cited here remains, thankfully, out there.
posted by kgasmart at 11:42 AM on March 19, 2005

that might be going a bit far

I agree. That song is horrible.
posted by senor biggles at 11:44 AM on March 19, 2005

(off topic) Smedleyman, that's why I can't even go to the local shooting range. They require an NRA membership, and I absolutely and unequivocably refuse to support a PAC that I don't agree with.
posted by Wulfgar! at 11:48 AM on March 19, 2005

At what point do the fringes sabotoge the main message?
When a particularly skillful propagandist does two things:
(1) puts a laser-like focus on the fringes of the other side,
and (2) forces discipline and unity on his own side to protect his side's nutcases from internal criticism.
Thus producing the appearance that "THEY" are defined by their greatest extremes, when in fact "WE" are giving far too much legitimacy to our nutcases.
And by "WE", I don't mean MetaFilter. (I'm not like quonsar believing that Matt is as bad as Karl Rove) *awaits fish slapping*
posted by wendell at 11:55 AM on March 19, 2005

First link: It's Norwegian (I think.)

Intertran gave me this text on the page: (I tried to find a way to link to the translated page but my brain is still at the bar last night.)

Kampanjevideoen: Antiamerikansk dance along with Promoter (MPG).

We becomes always chased around the net. Facts lastly am that they as owner domain .NU declines us to kobleren at that genuine sida. Of which you'll see text, asNorwegian police and it American embassy shall that we do be about in booby hatch for, andas always becomes sensurert and declined at internettservere above entire the world be bound toyou elapse innom damnably our.

Here able you see police claim at nettleverandøren our about to closure sida.


So. Yeah. That's...uh...helpful.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 11:58 AM on March 19, 2005

Wulfgar!, don't you live in Big Sky Country? Who needs a shooting range there? (It does suck to require an NRA membership just to use the range.)
posted by caddis at 12:05 PM on March 19, 2005

After the whole fiasco with Elian Gonzalez, my father simultaneously renewed his NRA and ACLU memberships. His is a strange and wonderful patriotism.
In his book, guns are o.k., as long as he's the only one on the block who's packing. ACLU=pro-gun control lobbying. That one always broke my brain in PoliSci 250.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:14 PM on March 19, 2005

Was that a translation or Vogon poetry?
posted by clevershark at 12:20 PM on March 19, 2005

caddis, a shooting range is helpful, what with safer conditions and target backs and all, but you're right. I don't need one, and I won't pay for one if it means supporting the NRA.
posted by Wulfgar! at 12:21 PM on March 19, 2005

Or rather, supporting the travesty that the NRA has become.
posted by Wulfgar! at 12:24 PM on March 19, 2005

(off topic) Wufgar - that does indeed suck. All we need here is an FOID card. I'd call it discrimination.
(but on topic)
wendell - *soup-nazi voice* no fish-slap for you!

There seems to be a difference between propagandist techniques - which are disgusting of course, but only really last one generation as opposed to a sort of slow mission creep like with the NRA.
I mean one day it's all about being out in the woods with family and as years go by you suddenly realize you have Moses clutching a musket, holding it over his head and yelling "my cold dead hand!"

Is it possible that neo-con thang you allude to makes it possible to pull off that propaganda?

In the late 60s you had the right wing complaining about the 'Jesus Freaks' who were hippies. So does the finge eventually co-opt the mainstream?
posted by Smedleyman at 12:24 PM on March 19, 2005

From the antiamerica site: What I found first astonished me, everything I learned at school was not true, Neil Armstrong was NOT the first man to land on the moon, in fact no one has EVER landed on the moon, and this is because the moon has absolutely NO atmosphere, so how can you land there?

Umm.... say what?
posted by Tullius at 12:27 PM on March 19, 2005

That last line wasn't supposed to be in italics....
posted by Tullius at 12:29 PM on March 19, 2005

Not much doubt that anti-Americanism is on the rise in the world. Neocons should be proud, they really are shaping the way the world thinks!
posted by clevershark at 12:31 PM on March 19, 2005

*hands cleversnark a fire-extinguisher*
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:52 PM on March 19, 2005

Oh, and clevershark:
O Feedled Gruntbuggly,
? ... Thy nacturations are to me!
As plurdled gabbleblochits on a lurgid bee.
Groop, I emplore thee, my foonting turlingdromes.
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles
or I will rend thee in gabberwarts with my burglecruncheon,
See if I don't!

or make your own.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:59 PM on March 19, 2005

We have always had nutcases.
The problem today is that the nutcases are in charge.
As such, being a moderate makes you an extremist, according to the ones in charge.
posted by nofundy at 1:37 PM on March 19, 2005

I think it's morally wrong to wish for any physical harm to come to George Bush, or Dick Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rice, etc.

On the other hand, I'd be cheering aloud if it were to come to pass that they were publicly humiliated.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 2:09 PM on March 19, 2005

I loved the guy with the dreads.
posted by kuatto at 2:17 PM on March 19, 2005

SABOTOG!
posted by blacklite at 2:26 PM on March 19, 2005

It's obvious which political side is most hypocritical when it comes to tolerance.
posted by HTuttle at 3:02 PM on March 19, 2005

The left and the right both have extreme nutcases. The difference (in the US, at least) is that by and large the left-wing extremists are out ion the fringes where they belong, whereas the right-wing extremists are in the senate, the house of representatives, state legislatures and in prominent positions in the media.
posted by PlusDistance at 3:18 PM on March 19, 2005

It's obvious which political side is most hypocritical when it comes to tolerance.

To both sides no less!
posted by schyler523 at 3:20 PM on March 19, 2005

ACLU=pro-gun control lobbying.
The National ACLU considers itself neutral on gun control, and is on the same legal side as the NRA perhaps more often than you think.
posted by obloquy at 3:29 PM on March 19, 2005

The difference between our nuts and their nuts is that our nuts aren't as bad or as nutty.
posted by koeselitz at 6:35 PM on March 19, 2005

Ask PETA, my favorite "good cause gone horribly awry" group. Ethical treatment of animals is one thing - frothing at the mouth at people who eat fish or wear leather is quite another.

I keep thinking about all the moderate Christians out there, wondering if Fred Phelps is really helping.
posted by FormlessOne at 6:36 PM on March 19, 2005

having been pretty politically active for awhile, it's been my experience that nutcases are by far the biggest obstacle to any political movement.

i'm still struggling with how to deal with this.
posted by 3.2.3 at 6:49 PM on March 19, 2005

So, wendell: What is the sound of one fish slapping?
posted by soyjoy at 10:11 PM on March 19, 2005

what PlusDistance said.
posted by amberglow at 10:22 PM on March 19, 2005

Well, that was one of the greatest Saved by the Bell episodes of all time.
posted by loquax at 11:50 PM on March 19, 2005

Don't underestimate the power of nutcases to undo a movement. I posit that one (1!) of the major things that hamstrung the New Left in the 60s/70s was the perception of it attracting nothing but "protest culture" nutcases. The medium (protest) squashed the message, because of a minority of widely publicized extremists. A case in point: environmentalism. It is almost impossible to find anyone that doesn't want clean air and water, and (maybe) nice forests or parks somewhere they can go play in. However, to many, many people in America, environmentalist == tree-hugging, hippy freak communist!

So nutcases represent a real problem. It is totally accepted today to brush off the argument of someone because they are nutcase. How do we know they are a nutcase? Why, I disagree with them, ergo, they MUST be a nutcase!
posted by teece at 12:03 AM on March 20, 2005

The United States is no stranger to having presidents assassinated. I, for one, have been wondering since about 2001 why nobody has (as far as we know) even attempted to kill this particular president, considering how he's clearly made himself a great deal of enemies.

Secondly, I doubt my own suggestion that such an attempt would be covered-up in this new era of The War on Terror. Wouldn't a presidential assassination attempt be another perfect uniting event in American politics, just as 9/11 was in Bush's first term?

I do believe that is morally wrong, even villainous to actively campaign for assassination as this website appears to be doing. However, I will freely admit that if Bush were to be assasinated, I'd party - until I realized that this means that CHENEY IS IN CHARGE. Which is probably why nobody has killed Bush - it's the perfect life insurance, making your vice-president a worse alternative to yourself.
posted by mek at 12:34 AM on March 20, 2005

However, I will freely admit that if Bush were to be assasinated, I'd party - until I realized that this means that CHENEY IS IN CHARGE.

And that would be different how?
posted by Enron Hubbard at 7:39 AM on March 20, 2005

It does make me think how odd it is to have nuts on what you consider the correct side of an issue.


Why is that odd? Nutsy people get attracted to all kinds of ideologies and there's always people who take things to far.

The difference between our nuts and their nuts is that our nuts aren't as bad or as nutty.

You're probably kidding around but in a weird way that's the problem. Reasonable advocates often feel the need to tacitly defend the nuttier adherents to the same cause out of a misguided sense of loyalty, which does nothing but forge a connection in peoples minds.

Which is probably why nobody has killed Bush - it's the perfect life insurance, making your vice-president a worse alternative to yourself.

See: Quayle, Dan aka The Walking Talking Bulletproof Vest.
posted by jonmc at 7:40 AM on March 20, 2005