23% of us are Fucked

Tonight former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean discussed his intriguing new book "Conservatives without Consciences" as the lead story on Keith Olbermann. In it he described how his discussions with the late Barry Goldwater, the nominal father of the modern conservative movement, evolved from talking about just how far afield that movement has grown to a discussion of how authoritarianism has crept in and taken over the Republican Party.

Sparked by Goldwater, Dean continued to research on the subject with various scholars looking into the psychology of authorianism and found a wealth of information on the subject.

Acording to his findings, a vast majority of Conservatives are drawn into the Leader/Follower archetype, where the Leaders are considered infallable, and the loyalty of the Followers is completely unshakable. About "23% of the populace falls into the follower category" said Dean. "These people are impervious" to fact, rationality and reality. And their "Numbers are growing".

Let's just face it, 23% of us are basically fucked in the head.

Video and Transcript of the Segment.

I'm looking forward to reading Dean's book in full, but just the glimmers presented on Olbermann were both shocking and at the same time, quite familiar. We've seen this story before in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. There is always the patsy, the scapegoat - the one true source of all of societies ills. In those societies it was the jews or those greedy imperialist Americans.

Now, it's the Liberals.

Liberals and all the other societal hangers-on and scum they try to protect. Gays who insist on the "special" right of marrying the consenting adult of their choice. Uppity Women in the workplace, who won't remember their place in the kitchen and bedroom. Blacks who want hand-outs in order to jump to the head of the line, immigrants who simply can't seem to wait their turn to be exploited for ridiculously low wages and lack of health-care. And lastly weak-kneed bleeding hearts who think dirty terrorist slime deserve the equal protection of the laws. Hmph.

Also tonight while Olbermann was speaking with Dean on the issue of just how close to full-on Totalitarianism this country is gradually tipping - Bill O'Reilly was speaking with two Fox's heavily fact-challenged Military Analysts, Gen. McInerny and Col David Hunt who proclaimed that both Bob Herbert of the NY Times and California Senator Barbara Boxer were "blatantly lying about our troops in Iraq". Herbert had written an Op-ed which indicated that Neo-Nazi's and Skinhead have begun infiltrating the Military, while Boxer had stated that incidents of PTSD have increased in our Military and that incidents of soldiers taking anti-depressents being sent into combat have increased, as have the number of suicides among our troops.

Unfortunately for O'Reilly, McInerny and Hunt the source of the Neo-Nazi and Skinhead has been the Military itself as document by the Southern Poverty Law Center via the New York Times.

July 7, 2006 -- Before the U.S. military made Matt Buschbacher a Navy SEAL, he made himself a soldier of the Fourth Reich.

Before Forrest Fogarty attended Military Police counter-insurgency training school, he attended Nazi skinhead festivals as lead singer for the hate rock band Attack.

And before Army engineer Jon Fain joined the invasion of Iraq to fight the War on Terror, the neo-Nazi National Alliance member fantasized about fighting a war on Jews.

"Ever since my youth -- when I watched WWII footage and saw how well-disciplined and sharply dressed the German forces were -- I have wanted to be a soldier," Fain said in a Winter 2004 interview with the National Alliance magazine Resistance. "Joining the American military was as close as I could get."

And the source of the anti-depressant and suicide story is also problematic for O'Reilly and his cohorts since it's also the military via ABC News.

The Hartford Courant, citing records obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act and more than 100 interviews of families and military personnel, reported numerous cases in which the military failed to follow its own regulations in screening, treating and evacuating mentally unfit troops from Iraq.

Twenty-two U.S. troops committed suicide in Iraq last year, accounting for nearly one in five of all non-combat deaths and the highest suicide rate since the war started, the newspaper said.

Some service members who committed suicide in 2004 and 2005 were kept on duty despite clear signs of mental distress, sometimes after being prescribed antidepressants with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring, the Courant reported. Those findings conflict with regulations adopted last year by the Army that caution against the use of antidepressants for "extended deployments."

"I can't imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on (antidepressants), when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal," said Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a New York-based advocacy group. "You're creating chemically activated time bombs."

To O'Rielly, this is all just defeatist talk designed to undermine the morale and willpower of our troops. To him, it's ridiculous to point out that our troops morale is already in the shitter - because then you'd have to actually do something about it. To Hunt, "This is the finest fighting force America has ever had, over 2/3rd of our troops are re-enlisting and our National Guard are gaining invaluable field experience and expertise". One wonders just what they might plan to do with that expertise in the future?

According to O'Reilly the killing of 25 civilians in Haditha is just a "random" occurance - it's just the way "War is fought" - sometimes civilians get hurt and somethings "War Crimes Happen". O'Reilly has yet to either apologize or set the record straight for his Malmedy misnomer - where he tried to white-wash Haditha by claiming that U.S. Soldiers in WWII murdered unarmed SS Soldiers even though the truth is that the U.S. Soldiers where the ones unarmed and murdered in cold blood.

And although he has spent incredible level of energy promoting Jessica's Law in an apparent effort to protect children from sexual predators, he's said precious little about the rape and murder of 15-year-old Iraqi girl, and her entire family.

To O'Reilly everyone is a liar.

"I can't base my opinion" about the Iraq war "on anything" other than "what my military analysts, people paid by Fox News, say to me." O'Reilly added that he could trust only Fox military analysts because "[t]he newspapers ... all have an agenda" and "only give you a snapshot of the war."

How's this for a snapshot.

Iraq in Turmoil

More soldiers charged with murder and Nic Robertson reports on the violence that is sweeping through Iraq.

Video -WMP Video -QT

Well over a hundred civilian casualties today…

Other authoritarian boot-lickers like Fred Barnes continue the drum beat of happy talk.

THERE'S JOY at the White House again and less anxiety among Republicans in Congress. The excesses of the press and Supreme Court are bringing Bush and rebellious conservatives closer together. Iraq is better off. The American economy is humming. The White House has made no harmful missteps. And the president's job approval rating is rising.

The war is unpopular, but it has nonetheless helped the Bush recovery in three ways. First, the killing of the terrorist Zarqawi and the formation of a permanent Iraqi government were encouraging developments. Second, the president punctuated his support for the new government with a surprise visit to Iraq, and he's gone on the offensive again in speeches defending his policy. On July 4, he told soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, he won't allow the death of 2,527 troops in Iraq "to be in vain by pulling out before the job is done." Third, Democrats have fumbled the Iraq issue.

The point here is that these people have no serious interest in fact or reality. As Lt. Col Karen Kwaitkoski stated - neo-cons "have a collective contempt for fact". Facts get in the way of all their big plans. Simply pointing out the failures of few soldiers is somehow attacking everyone in the military - and rather than addressing these problems, the authoritarian neo-cons would prefer that we just shut-up about them. Silence is Golden, in their world. And anyone who breaks the silence and spoils the Happy Talk Parade, deserves to be savaged and shown no mercy. Cue right-wing attack bitch Mann Coulter

And 23% of us are their willing partners in their flights of fancy. 23% of us not only don't question all the nonesense they spew, they welcome it. They desperately want to believe the New York Times simply hates America, that's why it's so desperate to "hurt our troops". The idea that a lack of armor, proper helmets, health care cuts, drinking contaminated water and being sent into a War zone based on bad policy, bad faith and lies might be somewhat more harmful than anything the New York Times might do or so - doesn't even enter the equation.

23% of us don't even begin to make the connection and never will. They're addicted to this shit, it doesn't matter how much the facts smack them in the forehead - they simply shake it off and keep propping up their little tin gods.

Dean suggests that the best we can do is recognize these people for who and what they are, but I think that's the least we can do. I think we need to confront these people at every turn, to face up to there puffed-up Alpha-male bully bullshit and take them down.

Bullies can be beaten, they can be stopped - particularly when the other 77% of us finally decide to get off the fence, stand up and do something about them.

Vyan