Archive for category Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority
Conservative Patriot Gives In: “As half the nation is in sheer awe of this American Idol “rockstar” presidency.”
Posted by Cliff Lyon in Authoritarianism, Conservative, Laugh, Liars (politics), Tea Bag Party, Tea Party, The Koch Brothers, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on February 19, 2013
I’ve followed this Facebook page for several months. Its one of the best in it’s genre; an excellent reference for study of the authoritarian mind and an excellent resource for tracking the Tea Party memes since 2010.
Its run, and run well, by a single person. Id love to speak with him and find out how I’ve been “dumbed-down.”
He posted the following today:
Conservative Patriots of America: Folks, I cannot do this any longer, it is of NO use. As half the nation is in sheer awe of this American Idol “rockstar” presidency, and the mainstream media is further enabling the STUPIDITY & NONSENSE with the dumbing-down of the citizens, Obama has just played his 115th round of golf — lucky he, huh? Well, how about that UNEMPLOYMENT RATE, or the fact that he met with his now defunct “Jobs Council” only FOUR TIMES before dissolving it — or that National Debt, or that China owns us — I mean, REALLY, WHERE do I begin??
I have sat at my computer for nearly THREE YEARS wasting my time & energy on a matter that cannot be resolved. We are less than one month into the second term, and if any of you have any “foresight,” methinks you will agree with me that NOTHING is going to get done, NOTHING is going to get better, and NOTHING can be done about it. I’ve done what I can & that’s about it, there is nothing more I can do or say. I’ll be hanging Old Glory upside-down for the next four years.
Oh, and to the Trolls, P.S. Do NOT talk about Bush’s vacations, the world was a MUCH different place during Bush’s 2 terms — find something else to bring to the table on this presidency. Join us at: Conservative Patriots of America — on facebook.
Here’s a picture from his page that almost made me want to join up with them “patriots.”
Isn’t being anti-choice messing with family?
I sent him a Tweet asking him to contact me through Facebook. I hope he’ll give me an interview.
“My Conundrum:” A Crack of Light In The Collision of a Conservative Mind and Life: Could TeaPartyCommunity.com Be a Good Thing?
Posted by Cliff Lyon in Conservative, Conservatives, Evangelism, Health Care, ObamaCare, Religion, Socialism, Tea Bag Party, Tea Party, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority, Unemployment on February 5, 2013
Update 2.6.2012: It appears teapartycommunity.com blocked my IP, which is exposed by design in our comments. This is remarkable given the amount of effort that must have been invested to not only find this post, but to inspect the comments in order to discover my IP address. My next post on the subject will be about the astounding hypocrisy of the underlying justification for starting TeaPartyCommunity.com
Perusing the new TeaPartyCommunity.com Facebook-like platform, I was riveted by “Cade’s comment” as an excellent illustration of the tension between high self-conviction and low emotional intelligence in the conservative religious mind.
…which compelled me to read the top post “My Conundrum” which struck me as so perfectly juxtaposed to Cade’s comment as an example of the opposite tension, lower self-conviction, higher emotional intelligence. “My Conundrum” is posted also in its entirety below Cade’s comment immediately below.
“Christopher Noyes – Well Cade, you are what we call around here, complicated. Truth is we all are complicated, how we resolve inner conflict plays a big part in determining our character.
First, you did not abuse the safety net, and I do not believe the safety net ought to be removed. The problem with the safety net is the abuse of it that is cultivated and facilitated for either criminal or political reasons. It is there for people who, like you, had an untimely life threatening event, an emergency of life or death. Reforms may not be able to correct the safety net, and I would rather see it in the hands of the church like it was at one time, but the truth is the only way the government got a foot hold into social welfare is the church abdicated its responsibility a long time ago.
Second, God has never left you, he does not despise you, he has brought all of these things in your life for your edification because you are his adopted son and he loves you. Read the rest of this entry »
Rodney Boyer’s Opinion on ObamaCare
Posted by Cliff Lyon in American People, Health Care, ObamaCare, Some people should not own guns, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on January 29, 2013
Sometimes, I see a comment that makes me afraid for our country.
Our Multidimensional Crisis: Institutional Breakdown
Posted by Glenden Brown in 2012 Elections, Activist groups, Afghanistan, American History, American People, Bailout, Bush Administration, Climate Change, Conservative, Conservatives, Conspiracy theories, Deficit, Economy, Elections, GLBT issues, Iran, Iraq, Liberal, Poverty, Religion, Religious Fundamentalism, Republicans, Science, Society, This Blog, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority, Unemployment on November 19, 2012
The signs are all around us – our crisis continues to deepen and to engulf us in its complexity.
Manuel Castells, in the introduction to The Power of Identity:
The Iraq invasion was the return of the state in it most traditional form of exercising its monopoly of violence, and it followed a major crisis of international governance institutions, starting with the United Nations, marginalized by the United States, and the apparent triumph of unilateralism in spite of an objectively multilateral world. [snip]
Not only was the United States drawn into protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as al-Qaeda wanted, but its inability to build a global governance system led to a multidimensional, global crisis of which the financial collapse of 2008 was only its most damaging expression.[snip]
. . .. in the long term the trends that characterized the social structure ultimately imposed their logic, but in the short term the autonomy of the political agency could oppose such logic because of the interests and values of the actors occupying the commanding heights of agency. When such is the case, as during the Bush-Cheney administration period, the discrepancy between structure and agency induces systemic chaos, and ultimately destructive processes that add to the difficulties of managing the adaptation of the nation-state to the global conditions of the network society.
A Romney Supporter Reported Me To Facebook? I Am Blocked for 7 Days.
Posted by Cliff Lyon in 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Mormon LDS, Racism, Republicans, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on November 5, 2012
Facebook censorship or whiny Republicans or both?
Fundamentalism Feeding Polarization
Posted by Glenden Brown in 4th Estate (Media), Activist groups, American History, American People, Conservative, Liberal, Religion, Religious Fundamentalism, Republicans, Society, This Blog, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on November 1, 2012
In an article at Alternet,Katherine Stewart observes:
There is an obvious answer, and it is, in a sense, staring you in the face every time you watch a political debate or read about the latest antics of Focus on the Family and the AFA. The kind of religion that succeeds in politics tends to focus on the divisive element of religion. If you want to use religion to advance a partisan political agenda, the main objective you use it for is to divide people between us and them, between the in-group and the out-group, the believers and the infidels.
The result is a reduction of religion to a small handful of wedge issues. According to the religious leaders and policy organizations urging Americans to vote with their “Biblical values,” to be Christian now means to support one or, at most, a small handful of policy positions. And it means voting for the Republican party [snip]
When religion is thus reduced to a single policy decision and support for a political party, it becomes shrill and bigoted. This abuse of religion for political purposes has been tremendously damaging for American politics. But it is worth pointing out that it has been destructive of religion, too. According to another poll this month, this one by the Pew Research Center, record numbers of Americans are now reporting that they have no particular religious affiliation. Perhaps that is because, right now, the God of hate seems to be shouting louder than the God of love.
Stewart’s article is a good one, but I don’t believe she pushes her thesis far enough. I’ve written before about political fundamentalism on the American Right: Read the rest of this entry »
Clinton Translates Mitt Romney’s $5 Trillion Tax Cut Into ‘Arkansas Jawbone’ For Good Ol’ Boys
Posted by Cliff Lyon in 2012 Elections, Federal Budget, Mitt Romney, National Politics, People Are Nuts, Republicans, This Blog, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on October 16, 2012
So even Bubba can understand.
Clinton explains Mitt Romney’s $5 trillion tax cut (so even a Republican can understand) and how middle class families will pay MORE taxes so multi-millionaires can get another cut.
“In the first debate, Governor Romney said that he wasn’t really going to cut taxes on upper income people—he only wanted to cut taxes for middle class people. That’s not true.”
Clinton’s special gift is not that he can distill a complex concept down to a 6th grade level, it is rather that he seems not to mind doing it.
Post Race, aka, check your allies
Posted by Shane Smith in American People, Bigotry, Free Speech, People Are Nuts, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on August 6, 2012
First of all, let’s not get this mixed up with the gun violence. I have been, am, and will likely stay, convinced that regulated gun ownership is fine, and I see no evidence so far that even intelligently regulated firearms would have prevented this particular story. Don’t go there. Take that to the other threads. But…
This story. Seriously. WTF?
Nixon’s Ghost, Missed Opportunities and Political Gridlock
Posted by Glenden Brown in Activist groups, American History, Authoritarianism, Bush Administration, Conservative, Conservatives, Corruption, Democracy, Liberal, Party Politics, Political Corruption, Republicans, Richard Nixon, Society, This Blog, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority on June 25, 2012
I’ve long thought that American politics – and economics – went sideways in the 1970s and we’ve never recovered. The ghost of Richard Nixon continues to haunt American politics. Nixon’s resignation and Ford’s pardon of him left liberals feeling he’d avoided justly deserved punishment, while conservatives were never convinced his misdeeds were all that serious in the first place. The Clinton impeachment of the 90s was little more than conservatives avenging Nixon on Democrats. The invasion of Iraq was an attempt to refight (and win!) the Vietnam war, to restore the military and to show liberals once and for all the supporters of war were right. Amidst the ruins of the Bush administrations, conservatives were neither chastised nor educated; the ascendant tea party was nothing more than an attempt to redeem conservatism itself. Faced with disaster in every direction, unable to admit the problem lies not in their stars but themselves, conservatives doubled down on their ideology and have engaged in an idelogical terror that would make Stalin or Chairman Mao proud.
The left – burdened by a connection to reality – has proven unable to deal with the right’s lunacy and tantrums for the same reason a parent can’t control a child’s tantrum. Pushed bey0nd reason by the ever-unfolding disasters of the Bush presidency, and then the shock of losing to Barack Obama in 2008, conservatives collectively lost their minds and have spent years having a public fit. And so the whole political system has ground to a painful halt.
Could it have been avoided? Read the rest of this entry »
Why Do ‘They’ Hate Us?
Posted by Richard Warnick in Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Human Rights, National Politics, Pakistan, Taliban, Terrorism, This Blog, Torture, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority, War, War Crimes on June 13, 2012
Pakistanis hold up a burning mock drone aircraft during a 2011 rally against drone attacks in Peshawar.
Why do “they” hate us? The answer ought to be so obvious that there’s no need to actually explain it. Glenn Greenwald (the whole post is well worth reading):
Far from believing that another 9/11 can’t happen, I’m amazed that it hasn’t already, and am quite confident that at some point it will. How could any rational person expect their government to spend a full decade (and counting) invading, droning, cluster-bombing, occupying, detaining without charges, and indiscriminately shooting huge numbers of innocent children, women and men in multiple countries and not have its victims and their compatriots be increasingly eager to return the violence?
…I realize that screaming “9/11″ has been the trite tactic of choice for those seeking to justify the U.S. Government’s militarism over the last decade, but invoking that event strongly militates against the policies it’s invoked to justify, precisely because those policies are the principal cause of such attacks, for obvious reasons.
…Anwar Awlaki was once such a moderate that he vehemently denounced the 9/11 attacks, got invited to the Pentagon to speak, and hosted a column in The Washington Post on Islam — but then became radicalized by the constant post-9/11 killing of Muslims by his country (the U.S.).
There are plenty of intelligent people in the White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon. Why is our foreign policy so boneheaded?
UPDATE: Members of Congress call on Obama to justify drone strikes
“We are concerned that the use of such ‘signature’ strikes could raise the risk of killing innocent civilians or individuals who may have no relationship to attacks on the United States,” the members of Congress, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), wrote Wednesday in a letter to Obama. “Our drone campaigns already have virtually no transparency, accountability or oversight. We are further concerned about the legal grounds for such strikes under the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force.”
“The implications of the use of drones for our national security are profound,” they added. “They are faceless ambassadors that cause civilian deaths, and are frequently the only direct contact with Americans that the targeted communities have. They can generate powerful and enduring anti-American sentiment.”
UPDATE: Ibrahim Mothana: How Drones Help Al Qaeda
Anti-Americanism is far less prevalent in Yemen than in Pakistan. But rather than winning the hearts and minds of Yemeni civilians, America is alienating them by killing their relatives and friends. Indeed, the drone program is leading to the Talibanization of vast tribal areas and the radicalization of people who could otherwise be America’s allies in the fight against terrorism in Yemen.
UPDATE: Clive Stafford Smith: I Met a 16-Year-Old Kid. 3 Days Later Obama Killed Him
UPDATE: UN Investigator Says Drone Strikes May Constitute War Crimes
Killings may be lawful in an armed conflict but many targeted killings take place far from areas where it’s recognized as being an armed conflict. [If] there have been secondary drone strikes on rescuers who are helping [the injured] after an initial drone attack, those further attacks are a war crime.
Related One Utah posts:
Why Do ‘They’ Hate Us? (October 6, 2010)
Why Do ‘They’ Hate Us? (October 20, 2009)
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