Slog Comments
Today in Right-Wing Paranoia
1
Silver prices have been plunging in recent weeks. It's time again to play the rubes like a dented kazoo.
2
FEMA almost certainly made no such request. FEMA's yearly budget is $5.8B. 420M rations, even at just $1 each, would represent over 7% of their budget, and at more believable prices the fraction would be even larger.
FEMA, by the way, has very little in the way of supplies, equipment, or personel with emergency response skills. It's basicly a bunch of project managers with big checkbooks. Their job is to coordinate and pay the firms and institutions with actual supplies, equipment, and emergency response personel.
FEMA, by the way, has very little in the way of supplies, equipment, or personel with emergency response skills. It's basicly a bunch of project managers with big checkbooks. Their job is to coordinate and pay the firms and institutions with actual supplies, equipment, and emergency response personel.
3
I used to think all this conservative religo-gun nuttery was something relatively recent ... but then I read about the Hooker Telescope (Mount Wilson Observatory) ... The project's benefactor told a reporter at the New York Times that it's new giant lens would be able to see back to the moment of creation and god and such ... so the railroad transporting the lens from NY to CA in 1908 or thereabouts had to place it in an armoured shell to prevent fundamentalists from taking shots at it with their rifles.
6
@1: Time again to buy more silver. I made a killing during this recession.
Thank you short sighted Americans, and hi-tech electronics industry!
Thank you short sighted Americans, and hi-tech electronics industry!
7
@3 to be fair, the country bumpkins probably would take pot-shots at it anyway. See every road sign along every country highway everywhere.
8
Let's see... The average American eats 3 meals a day, not including snacks... Seven days in a week... About 10 million people were affected by hurricane Sandy, not all of them lost power, but some did for over two weeks.
So, if you wanted to stock enough shelf-stable food to feed 10 million people for two weeks on short notice, how many meals would that be? Hmmm... About 420 Million?
All things considered (and ignoring for a second that this story is undoubtedly complete horseshit), that's hardly an apocalypic-event-grade number.
So, if you wanted to stock enough shelf-stable food to feed 10 million people for two weeks on short notice, how many meals would that be? Hmmm... About 420 Million?
All things considered (and ignoring for a second that this story is undoubtedly complete horseshit), that's hardly an apocalypic-event-grade number.
10
So now Goldy is criticizing gun owners for using money to fight within the political system rather than mount armed resistance?
I actually just joined the SAF, along with the Gun Owners of America and Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership. http://jpfo.org/
They well with my NRA and ACLU memberships.
I actually just joined the SAF, along with the Gun Owners of America and Jews for Preservation of Firearms Ownership. http://jpfo.org/
They well with my NRA and ACLU memberships.
15
@12 World domination, eventually.
Why does the church have the lovely granite vaults up in Little Cottonwood Canyon in Salt Lake?
Why does the church have the lovely granite vaults up in Little Cottonwood Canyon in Salt Lake?
16
Wait, 420 MEEELION? Why, why... that's more than the population of the US-of-A!. They must be planning to put EVERYONE... including all 120 million ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS... into FEMA internment camps! fuckfuckfuck.. whaddo-I-do? uhhhmmmm... I know! I'll pack up my truck and go camp in the National Park, and then wait it out. Once people are in camps, and the resistors flee to the hills, I'll be ready to organize them. YEP!
(Good thing I bought all that junk silver!)
(Good thing I bought all that junk silver!)
17
Somehow, and I have no idea how, I got on the Second Amendment Foundation's email list. It makes for great reading, especially after a couple of cocktails.
19
@18 Exactly. Our government is somehow simultaneously capable of plotting these decades long secret conspiracies that span dozens of agencies - AND - our government isn't capable of the simplest tasks and must be replaced by private business.
Everybody knows that corporations will manage these conspiracies much more efficiently.
Everybody knows that corporations will manage these conspiracies much more efficiently.
22
The more paranoid a sector of society becomes, the less they vote. The more they believe in America, the more they're willing to get off the couch and cast one vote out of millions, with no tangible incentive or return.
So the more they turn inward, the more they spend their money on stocking up ammunition and food, and the more they plug into their right-wing echo chamber media, the less they participate.
Fox News tried to counteract this. They tried to get out the angry white male vote, but all their paranoid reporting worked against them. Voter turnout is precisely why Obama was reelected, and it's only going to get worse for the right.
So let them hole up in their bunkers. They're ceding the future to the rest of us. We can pass gun control, expand health care, even switch to single payer. Secure voting rights, fix regressive taxes. The list goes on.
So the more they turn inward, the more they spend their money on stocking up ammunition and food, and the more they plug into their right-wing echo chamber media, the less they participate.
Fox News tried to counteract this. They tried to get out the angry white male vote, but all their paranoid reporting worked against them. Voter turnout is precisely why Obama was reelected, and it's only going to get worse for the right.
So let them hole up in their bunkers. They're ceding the future to the rest of us. We can pass gun control, expand health care, even switch to single payer. Secure voting rights, fix regressive taxes. The list goes on.
23
@22 my only fear is they start feeling really threatened by the changing world and we start to see terrorist attacks from them.
24
@23, we have been seeing terrorist attacks from them for years. Oklahoma City is one of the results of this type of paranoia.
26
@23
Start to? Look at all the domestic terrorism under Clinton.
The difference is, now we have a massive anti-terrorism infrastructure in place, and it's much harder for them to pull it off. They send up red flags to Homeland Security with a thousand online telltales, and they get busted.
They would have blown up all sorts of things across America as soon as we put a black man in the White House. If they could. But they can't. They've tried and tried and they don't have the chops for it.
Start to? Look at all the domestic terrorism under Clinton.
The difference is, now we have a massive anti-terrorism infrastructure in place, and it's much harder for them to pull it off. They send up red flags to Homeland Security with a thousand online telltales, and they get busted.
They would have blown up all sorts of things across America as soon as we put a black man in the White House. If they could. But they can't. They've tried and tried and they don't have the chops for it.
27
@26,
The lone wolves still manage to pull this shit though, because the hate groups have largely wised up to how to pull off their race war without getting the FBI on their asses. So, instead, they stoke paranoia and subtly encourage loser, chinless, middle aged white men to act out on that paranoia, and we get "isolated" incidents like the murder of Dr. Tiller and the Sikh temple massacre.
The lone wolves still manage to pull this shit though, because the hate groups have largely wised up to how to pull off their race war without getting the FBI on their asses. So, instead, they stoke paranoia and subtly encourage loser, chinless, middle aged white men to act out on that paranoia, and we get "isolated" incidents like the murder of Dr. Tiller and the Sikh temple massacre.
28
@26 that's a relief. I kinda figured they spent more time looking at Abdul rather than Andy.
It'd be nice if education was valued in this country. It'd really cut down on our kook ratio.
It'd be nice if education was valued in this country. It'd really cut down on our kook ratio.
29
How can I start an organization with a name like the Second Amendment Foundation and start collecting donations from people who think I will use their money to influence policy?
I have to believe there are millions to be made by promoting paranoia this way.
No organization that writes anything like that fundraising letter can ever be taken seriously by policymakers. They must know that. Therefore that cannot be their goal. Their goal is clearly just to take money from those they scare.
I have to believe there are millions to be made by promoting paranoia this way.
No organization that writes anything like that fundraising letter can ever be taken seriously by policymakers. They must know that. Therefore that cannot be their goal. Their goal is clearly just to take money from those they scare.
30
Alright - so what's the best way for us non-gun nuts to exploit the gun nuts paranoia for financial gain? I'm liking this UN angle... What type of organization do I need to start so I can spend the money any way I choose (i.e. on myself).
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