The Wing-Nut Code: What Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin Are Really Saying to Their Followers

[laststeamtrain]

The Wing-Nut Code: What Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin Are Really Saying to Their Followers
By Adele M. Stan, AlterNet
Posted on September 2, 2009, Printed on September 2, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/142333/

When Glenn Beck offers an odd-looking icon for his 9-12 Project, or Sarah Palin says something about her native state that sounds a bit to off-kilter to the ears of those in the lower 48, it's tempting to think, well, they're just nuts.

Perhaps they are, but that's beside the point. The point is that when Beck throws up a graphic of a segmented snake as his project's mascot, or Palin speaks of her native land as the "sovereign" state of Alaska, they're blowing a kind of dog-whistle for the armed and paranoid who make up the right-wing, neo-militia "Patriot" movement and the broader "Tea Party" coalition.

The loose affiliation of right-wing groups under the Tea Party umbrella can make it difficult to discern who's truly dangerous, and who's just an angry blowhard.

<snip>

The Tea Party coalition is mobilizing for what it promises will be a big march on Washington on Sept. 12. As the date approaches, expect to hear more disguised shout-outs to patriots and tea-partiers, as right-wing politicians seek to placate the hordes said to be on their way to the nation's capitol.

Members of the far-right Tea Party and patriot movements love the iconography of the American Revolution. They fancy themselves as "patriots" in the mold of Ethan Allen and Charles Gadsden -- men who led militias against the troops of England's despotic King George III.

Yet much of their ideology stems from the states' rights philosophy of the Confederacy in the Civil War, and sometimes the ideas and symbols of the two wars are drawn together in a tangle of rage.

<more>

http://www.alternet.org/politics/142333/the_wing-nut_code%3A_what_glenn_beck_and_sarah_palin_are_really_saying_to_their_followers/

[DCKit]

1. On the brighter side, I'll get to see my younger (and, currently, delusional) sister.

Yeah, she's coming for 9/12.

I need my own poster, but something subtle like:

"Jesus Hates the Poor, the Sick and the Infirm. No Reform!"

or

"Spare the Oligarhs of Health Care - The Change They Need is IN YOUR POCKET"

[optimal-tomato]

2. I like them both, but the first is more effective.

But either of them is likely to get you mistaken for an angry hateful blowhard.

Hey, stop socialism or
Else! No bill is better than
A bad bill. Barney Frank is a
Lame marxist.

Unconstitutional bills
Suck up our children's future.

(But only read the first letters.)

[Dennis Donovan]

3. On last night's KO, Dan Savage said something to this effect...

...that the "live-or-die" rhetoric coming from the right is essentially giving the armed and crazy folks on the right side permission to assassinate President Obama. I have to agree with Dan.:scared:

[liberal N proud]

4. I am afraid of the same

Too many wacko's out there.

[tinrobot]

5. Isn't Sept 12th the day before the Healthcare march?