Being new to Twitter, I recently decided to spend a few days following some of the right wing tweets, primarily those with the hash tags #gop and #tcot (top conservatives on twitter). As an unapologetic liberal, I thought it might be easier to stomach right wing commentary if it came in snippets of 140 characters or less.
Day 2: Curmudgeon and professional conspiracy theorist Jim Robinson, founder of FreeRepublic.com, is, unsurprisingly, widely read and quoted by top conservatives on Twitter.
“The unlawful federal government’s takeover of the financial, banking and insurance industries was just a prelude to the planned complete unconstitutional Marxist takeover of all of America“* is how he opens one of his newest rants.
(FreeRepublic is also the site where posters were making derogatory comments about President Obama’s daughter Malia this past week, and a forum where James von Brunn, the Holocaust Museum shooter, posted.)
Confusion between Marxism and equal opportunity is commonplace among conservative twitterers. As with Robinson, Communism, Marxism, and Fascism are all interchangable epithets, and quite popularly used to describe any number of Democratic initiatives, including health care, the stimulus package, the upcoming census and more.
If one were to believe conservative tweeters, Obama is basically Karl Marx 2.0, and sleeps with a little red book under his pillow. Some samples:
“Hey Obama, I want to be clear. We don’t want your marxism, America says you gotta go.” The provided link goes to an article “proving” Obama is a Marxist mole. The basis for this? Obama is a “secret smoker” and thus must be hiding other secrets. And when he was ten, Obama associated with someone who was identified by HUAC as a Communist.
(Discussing the OnStar system) “Did I already post that Marxism wants to control your car when Constitution 4bids?“*
“Another attack on the “rich” – surtax to pay for health plan. Can U say MARXISM?“*
“No re-education camp for me! George Washington would not learn communism/fascism/marxism/socialism to get along! Freedom is not free!”* (Nevermind that these political theories didn’t exist until well after Washington’s death in 1799. The poster seems threatened that people are merely being asked to learn about communism, etc.. Ignorance is patriotic!)
One person supplies a link to his blog post “Marxism in America – Evolution or Conspiracy?” which identifies the three “Communist Rules for Revolution”, which to me seems awfully simple and easy to accomplish. Who knew?
Corrupt the young. Get them away from religion. Get them interested in sex. Make them superficial; destroy their ruggedness.
Get control of all means of publicity
Cause the registration of all firearms on some pretext, with the view of confiscation of them and leaving the population helpless.
Marxist yet? I guess the fourth step is a spontaneous reorganization of the country to benefit the proletariat, and total redistribution of power and wealth. Easy.
One of the more disturbing Obama-as-Marxist memes seems to be that the President is stoking the flames of racial hatred in this country as part of a grand Marxist conspiracy: “Anti-capitalists are typically called Marxists, aren’t they? Didn’t Marxism use USA race relations to foment class envy and hatred?”*
From what I’ve seen, it is the right wingers who, motivated by fear, are stirring up racial hatred. The anti-immigration/Minutemen/English only movement, attacks on ACORN, efforts to end the Voting Rights Act, and intimidation tactics used at the voting booth are but a few examples of conservative campaigns to fan the flames of racial animosity in the United States.
The prevailing attitude of conservatives on Twitter seems to be that life is so much easier when you don’t need to bother understanding public policy or even political philosophy. It’s better to just reduce everything to a battle between good and Stalinism.
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Twits on the Right: Day 2 – Good vs. Stalinism
Being new to Twitter, I recently decided to spend a few days following some of the right wing tweets, primarily those with the hash tags #gop and #tcot (top conservatives on twitter). As an unapologetic liberal, I thought it might be easier to stomach right wing commentary if it came in snippets of 140 characters or less.
Day 2:
Curmudgeon and professional conspiracy theorist Jim Robinson, founder of FreeRepublic.com, is, unsurprisingly, widely read and quoted by top conservatives on Twitter.
“The unlawful federal government’s takeover of the financial, banking and insurance industries was just a prelude to the planned complete unconstitutional Marxist takeover of all of America“* is how he opens one of his newest rants.
(FreeRepublic is also the site where posters were making derogatory comments about President Obama’s daughter Malia this past week, and a forum where James von Brunn, the Holocaust Museum shooter, posted.)
Confusion between Marxism and equal opportunity is commonplace among conservative twitterers. As with Robinson, Communism, Marxism, and Fascism are all interchangable epithets, and quite popularly used to describe any number of Democratic initiatives, including health care, the stimulus package, the upcoming census and more.
If one were to believe conservative tweeters, Obama is basically Karl Marx 2.0, and sleeps with a little red book under his pillow. Some samples:
“Hey Obama, I want to be clear. We don’t want your marxism, America says you gotta go.” The provided link goes to an article “proving” Obama is a Marxist mole. The basis for this? Obama is a “secret smoker” and thus must be hiding other secrets. And when he was ten, Obama associated with someone who was identified by HUAC as a Communist.
(Discussing the OnStar system) “Did I already post that Marxism wants to control your car when Constitution 4bids?“*
“Another attack on the “rich” – surtax to pay for health plan. Can U say MARXISM?“*
“No re-education camp for me! George Washington would not learn communism/fascism/marxism/socialism to get along! Freedom is not free!”* (Nevermind that these political theories didn’t exist until well after Washington’s death in 1799. The poster seems threatened that people are merely being asked to learn about communism, etc.. Ignorance is patriotic!)
One person supplies a link to his blog post “Marxism in America – Evolution or Conspiracy?” which identifies the three “Communist Rules for Revolution”, which to me seems awfully simple and easy to accomplish. Who knew?
Marxist yet? I guess the fourth step is a spontaneous reorganization of the country to benefit the proletariat, and total redistribution of power and wealth. Easy.
One of the more disturbing Obama-as-Marxist memes seems to be that the President is stoking the flames of racial hatred in this country as part of a grand Marxist conspiracy: “Anti-capitalists are typically called Marxists, aren’t they? Didn’t Marxism use USA race relations to foment class envy and hatred?”*
From what I’ve seen, it is the right wingers who, motivated by fear, are stirring up racial hatred. The anti-immigration/Minutemen/English only movement, attacks on ACORN, efforts to end the Voting Rights Act, and intimidation tactics used at the voting booth are but a few examples of conservative campaigns to fan the flames of racial animosity in the United States.
The prevailing attitude of conservatives on Twitter seems to be that life is so much easier when you don’t need to bother understanding public policy or even political philosophy. It’s better to just reduce everything to a battle between good and Stalinism.
*Actual tweetsNext: the Birthers
Tags: conspiracy, freeper, marxism, twitter
This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 8:56 am and is filed under Art, Commentary, Culture, Life, Media, Politics, Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.