So far, we’ve had Birthers, “death panels,” a “death book,” concentration camps for conservatives, and the pervasive “Obama=Hitler” meme. And that’s just been in the first eight months of Barack Obama’s presidency.
But if you thought the wingnuts had already driven over the cliff and into the abyss, just wait. They really have just gotten started on their descent.
In a few weeks, there’s going to be a big gathering of right-wing True Believers in St. Louis, at a convention called “How to Take Back America”. Note, of course, that this is not terribly original; the Campaign for America’s Future convention for the previous five years before 2009 was called “Take Back America,” though this year they appropriately changed it to “America’s Future Now.” (Some wags in attendance called it “Got Back America.”) Given an opening and the circumstances, the wingnuts have claimed the name for themselves this year.
In any event, it promises to be something special. Guest wingnut luminaries speaking at the convention will include Rep. Michelle Bachmann, Rep. Steve King (the guy who claims that gays and lesbians wouldn't become hate-crime victims if they didn't flaunt it), Joseph Farah of World Nut Daily, and Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin (more about him shortly) plus, of course, such convention organizers as Phyllis Schlafly.
As Kyle at RightWingWatch notes, it looks to be a smashing good time, especially at the workshops, where you can bone up on such subjects as:
"How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists"
"How to deal with supremacist judges"
"How to defeat UN attacks on sovereignty"
"How to stop socialism in health care"
"How to counter the homosexual movement"
"How to stop the killings: pro-life solutions"
The video above was compiled from footage spotted by Kyle from a webcast promoting the conference.
Fundamentalist guru Rick Scarborough -- all you need to know about him is that he's an avid associate of Alan Keyes -- is featured in the first segment of the video, bemoaning the "crucifixion" of the 2008 election results. It's there mostly for the jaw-dropping amusement value.
The second half of the video is just downright weird: radio talk-show host Janet Porter, another of the conference's organizers, launches into a somewhat confusing array of conspiracy theories involving vaccines. Porter's theory is that President Obama and other nefarious types are currently trying to drum up hysteria about H1N1 flu so that they can give us a vaccine that will kill large numbers of Americans.
Seriously. That's her theory.
She even had on a woman named Jane Burgermeister on her radio program earlier this month, promoting precisely that theory:
Specifically, evidence is presented that the defendants, Barack Obama, President of the U.S, David Nabarro, UN System Coordinator for Influenza, Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO, Kathleen Sibelius, Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security, David de Rotschild, banker, David Rockefeller, banker, George Soros, banker, Werner Faymann, Chancellor of Austria, and Alois Stoger, Austrian Health Minister, among others, are part of this international corporate criminal syndicate which has developed, produced, stockpiled and employed biological weapons to eliminate the population of the U.S. and other countries for financial and political gain.
The charges contend that these defendants conspired with each other and others to devise, fund and participate in the final phase of the implementation of a covert international bioweapons program involving the pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Novartis. They did this by bioengineering and then releasing lethal biological agents, specifically the "bird flu" virus and the "swine flu virus" in order to have a pretext to implement a forced mass vaccination program which would be the means of administering a toxic biological agent to cause death and injury to the people of the U.S.
Now that is some top-shelf AAA Venusian-grade Crazy there, folks. It's almost enough to make me want to fly out to St. Louis just to witness it.
And let's not forget the high-quality advice we'd be getting. For instance, there's Gen. Boykin. Most folks remember Jerry Boykin as the general who made the war in Iraq out to be a religious crusade by "God's Army". But there's much, much more to Boykin than merely that; he also happens to be one of the chief upper-echelon culprits responsible for the atrocities at Abu Ghraib prison. And before that, he was directly involved in devising the FBI's disastrous strategy that produced the human disaster at the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas in 1993.
Who could ask for more?