WaPo front page exposing the crazies (racists)

[spanone]

The Americans are coming! Some in a Texas county fear an Obama-led U.S. military invasion.

BASTROP, Texas — The office of the Bastrop County Republican Party is in an old lumber mill on Main Street, with peeling brown paint and a sign out front that captures the party’s feelings about the Obama administration: “WISE UP AMERICA!”

Inside, county Chairman Albert Ellison pulled out a yellow legal pad on which he had handwritten page after page of reasons why many Texans distrust President Obama, including the fact that, “in the minds of some, he was raised by communists and mentored by terrorists.”

So it should come as no surprise, Ellison said, that as the U.S. military prepares to launch one of the largest training exercises in history later this month, many Bastrop residents might suspect a secret Obama plot to spy on them, confiscate their guns and ultimately establish martial law in one of America’s proudly free conservative states.

They are not “nuts and wackos. They are concerned citizens, and they are patriots,” Ellison said of his suspicious neighbors. “Obama has really painted a portrait in the minds of many conservatives that he is capable of this sort of thing.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-americans-are-coming-texans-fear-obama-led-us-military-invasion/2015/07/04/58047fee-2001-11e5-84d5-eb37ee8eaa61_story.html?hpid=z1

[HassleCat]

1. In our minds, we're not crazy.

Really? Then where are you crazy? It usually happens in the mind, Mr. Ellison.

[packman]

3. Inmates in an asylum

Put several of them in a room all claiming to be Jesus, and each one will say the others are crazy, not them.

[Fred Sanders]

2. "Obama has painted a portrait.."; when truly it is Fox and religion with the paintbrushes, these are

the empty canvas.

An excellent indication of being crazy is saying " I am not crazy".

[spanone]

4. no mr ellison, they are precisely the 'nuts & wackos'

[Fred Sanders]

5. You can not tighten down some screws without an abundance of nuts.

Paranoia and conspiracy theories about Obama are a convenient cover for blatant racism.

[gratuitous]

7. Against all the available facts

These folks have all drawn the same erroneous conclusions that just happen to coincide with the nonsense peddled by Fox News and other conservative outlets. But isn't it nice of the Washington Post to devote a front-page column to their lunatic ravings, interrupted only now and again by a stray sentence that wandered into the story about just how demented these ravings are?

[Fred Sanders]

11. Now if they would publish an article pointing out this is the demographic the GOP WH wannabees

are pandering to, all may yet be well in the corporate media world....even media corporations may conclude it is no longer profitable to keep the veils in place.

The root of all evil is money, but racism has strong branches in America.

[Stuart G]

6. Thanks for posting...this says a whole lot about some people.....k and r..nt

[brewens]

8. Do they think the TTP is one of his commie plots? That's some dazzling manipulation he has going

there to get Republicans and corporations to fall for it!

[Moral Compass]

9. Featured in the Dallas Morning News

I'm surprised, but this ran on page 5A of the Dallas Morning News.

What struck me is that the feature clearly identifies out and out racism as the cause for the utter paranoia in Bastrop and in Mr. Ellison's mind. Racism is also the root cause of the complete and total disrespect shown for President Obama.

A well done piece that lets the quotes from those interviewed tell the story.

[malaise]

10. Mr. Ellison is the leader of the crazy pack

Crazy rarely recognizes crazy

[spanone]

14. the black President is driving these racist fucks crazy....

but it's a short drive

[malaise]

17. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

A short drive over a cliff

[Gumboot]

12. Bastrop TX, is Trump Country!

(with Alex Jones as his VP)

[JHB]

13. They are not “nuts and wackos. They are concerned citizens, and they are patriots,”

Well, they're certainly acting like nuts and wackos about this.

Obama didn't paint that portrait, Mr. Ellison. Conservatives scrawled it all by themselves. They've had plenty of practice, some 50 years worth.

[gratuitous]

15. I also went to the story on MSN

I flipped through the comments, which are surprisingly decently informed. There is pushback, of course, and one fellow responded to a less-than-laudatory post about the folks in Bastrop with "And those people (in Bastrop) are more intelligent and better than you."

I want to focus for a moment on the "better than you" sentiment. I was born and reared in western Oregon, and make my home in Portland. The notion of someone saying "They're better than you" or its confrontational converse, "You think you're better than me?" just never entered into my consciousness. I've certainly heard it in many situations for probably all of my life, though I can't remember where I heard it first. I grew up - literally - on the wrong side of the tracks, so I could have or should have been sensitive to people around me putting on airs to try to make me feel inferior.

But one thing I have noticed about that "better than you" sentiment is that it's strongest in a certain cultural milieu. Randy Newman, in his song "Rednecks" leads off with a vignette of a television show where Lester Maddox squared off in a discussion with a "smart-ass New York Jew," in which both the Jew and the audience laughed at Lester Maddox. The singer protests that "if they think they're better than him, they're wrong." In a comedy bit, Ron White says some complimentary things about his father, who was a hard-working man all his life, and if you think you're "better than" his father, screw you.

The question I have, and perhaps someone who has grown up around this phrase can tell me, is where did this class consciousness come from? How does one discern from someone else's comment that "you think you're better than me," and why does it require such a hostile response that you're apparently willing to go fisticuffs over it? (And does the fact that I just typed "go fisticuffs" indicate that I think I'm better than you?)

Thanks in advance for your thoughtful responses.

[mountain grammy]

16. I feel like it's an alternate universe.

And we have to be there August 1st for a family reunion. My Texas born husband says not to worry, but I'm dreading our trip to crazy land. Many of the crazies are part of his own family.

[nc4bo]

18. The RW has changed the meaning of the word patriot.

Now I see it as another code word or dog whistle describing a herd of racist fucks.

[GoCubsGo]

19. Maybe not nuts and whackos, but..

...certainly some of the most ignorant and gullible people I have ever seen.

[meow2u3]

20. Someone needs to tell those maniacs that Communism is all but dead

Soviet-style Communism is a thing of the past that has been defeated largely under its own weight back in the late '80's-early '90's. "Communist" nations still actually neo-fascist, such as China, which is still very authoritarian but allowing--and controlling--big businesses.