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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)
Ed Brayton also blogs at Positive Liberty and The Panda's Thumb
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Posted on: April 23, 2009 9:30 AM, by Ed Brayton
From Pat Robertson, speaking about the DHS report on right wing extremists:
"It shows somebody down in the bowels of that organization is either a convinced left winger or somebody whose sexual orientation is somewhat in question. But it's that kind of thing, somebody who doesn't think that we should have abortion on demand, is labeled a terrorist! It's outrageous."
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Comments
Ed:
I think that Robertson could easily fill a Calendar lf "Quotes of the day" with nonsense like that statement and not have to worry about repeating himself anytime soon.
Posted by: democommie | April 23, 2009 10:13 AM
And then he gives out the contact number for DHS, and urges his listeners to jam up thier phone lines "Good for you".
When I was a child I was told never to call the police unless I had an emergency situation, or needed police action, because somebody else might be trying to get through, and if I was on the line, they couldn't.
Robertson is, IMHO, the antithesis of what his religion is supposed to be about. I can hardly wait until his followers realize that, but I'm not holding my breath - he panders to the bigots, the far right, in short, he's competing for Limbaugh and Hannity's audience.
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | April 23, 2009 10:20 AM
Butthead....he said "bowels"....He! He! He! He!
Posted by: Rev. AJB | April 23, 2009 10:21 AM
It's amusing, in a horrid sort of way, that anyone who opposed right wing extremests, and identifies tham by their actions, is portrayed by the right wing extremists as someone of "questionable sexuality".
Way to drop ad hominems there, Pat!
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | April 23, 2009 10:25 AM
Pat obviously didn't read the report. And no one told him that it was the Bush administration that commissioned the report. And no one told him that questioning someone's sexuality as an insult is so 1980s.
Posted by: Iason Ouabache | April 23, 2009 10:30 AM
Back in teh early 90s I had a job at a university library. One of my activities was cataloging and making holding records for annual reports from various government bodies. One of these was the House Committee on Un-American Activities. We had a string of reports going from the early 60s to the earlly 70s when the committee was finally disbanded. In each year's report there was a section on extreme right wing groups in addition to the reports on extreme lef wing groups the committee is usally associated with. I guess in modern conservative parlance that would make the House Committee on Un-american Activities a "eft-wing" group.
Posted by: Ericb | April 23, 2009 10:34 AM
Couldn't this person in the" bowels of the organization" be a convinced homosexual whose left-wing orientation is somewhat in question?
By the way, I think it's great that the right-wing demagogues in this country are apopleptic over the DHS report, as it shows once and for all just where their sympathies lie. It demonstrates how blurry the lines between movement conservatism and far-right extremism have become.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | April 23, 2009 10:36 AM
Pat obviously didn't read the report. And no one told him that it was the Bush administration that commissioned the report.
Truly a good point. They looney right is acting as if Napolitano somehow managed to commission the report, get the field operatives and analysts working, write up the report, and announce/release it in less than three months. Damn impressive work, now for an encore, she's also caught Bin Laden (he was vacationing in Texas), and solved the JFK assassination. [/end snark]
It's funny, the Bush administration commissions a report, the results find that the greatest terrorist threat to our nation is right-wing extremism, which, with the exception of 9/11 has the greatest body count of any terrorist organizations, and the right-wing blames the Democrat who was just appointed to the job in January for "political" attacks.
Posted by: dogmeatib | April 23, 2009 10:56 AM
Abortion on demand? My cable company offers that now? Wow. The pace of technological advance really is fast. I can't wrap my head around how they would do it, but the internet being a series of tubes and all, I can sort of imagine...
Posted by: MTiffany | April 23, 2009 11:05 AM
I personally think a colonoscopy of a Cabinet Agency would be very revealing. Pat's on to something.
Posted by: kehrsam | April 23, 2009 11:36 AM
On April 23, 2009 10:56 AM, dogmeatib posted:
It's funny, the Bush administration commissions a report, the results find that the greatest terrorist threat to our nation is right-wing extremism, which, with the exception of 9/11 has the greatest body count of any terrorist organizations, and the right-wing blames the Democrat who was just appointed to the job in January for "political" attacks.
Not only that, but Bush runs up record debt (with help form mostly Republican Congresses), but a lot of conservatives do not notice. But get a Democrat in office, and all of a sudden they are upset about all the spending. (Pretty similar to what happened when Clinton took office, isn't it?)
How can conservatives say what they say with a straight face? And why do some people seem to buy into it?
Posted by: Blue Nine | April 23, 2009 12:14 PM
Posted by: dogmeatib: | April 23, 2009 10:56 AM: They looney right is acting as if Napolitano somehow managed to commission the report, get the field operatives and analysts working, write up the report, and announce/release it in less than three months.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I bet that's exactly what they believe.
Posted by: Chiroptera | April 23, 2009 12:21 PM
Yeah...but first they must drink a gallon of "Go Lightly" (What a name for a product!) And two...they can't have any of those nice drugs that make you nap through it!
Posted by: Rev. AJB | April 23, 2009 12:23 PM
Posted by: James Hanley | April 23, 2009 12:49 PM
Seriously, a "Wingnut QOTD" desk calendar would be a great idea -- I'd certainly buy them. Double so if the proceeds went to some reasonable cause.
Posted by: D. C. Sessions | April 23, 2009 12:59 PM
Many years ago, that other wingnut Pastor Rod Parsley (or, seemingly, "Prod Parsley" due to the rather unfortunate banner design for his web site) used to have a collection of his "pearls of wisdom" -- snappy one-liners designed invigorate the faithful. I wish now I had saved a copy, since some of them were unintentionally hilarious.
Posted by: tacitus | April 23, 2009 1:28 PM
"Abortion on demand? My cable company offers that now? Wow. The pace of technological advance really is fast. I can't wrap my head around how they would do it, but the internet being a series of tubes and all, I can sort of imagine..."
I'm guessing the work for this was begun shortly after "Demon Seed" was made.
Posted by: dean | April 23, 2009 1:39 PM
Good old Pat is proof that you don't need brains to be on T.V.
Posted by: Paen | April 23, 2009 2:49 PM
yanno, i wish i could figure out how these beanheads do it. really, consider how long he's been saying crazy stuff like this, and then think of the coin he's made off it! i can sit around spouting crazy all day long, but i haven't figured out how to make a living off it.
Posted by: BrinyDeep | April 23, 2009 3:54 PM
Pat Robertson to Democrats:
"UR A FAG."
Glad to see we can always count on him to raise the level of discourse in this country.
Posted by: Russell Stewart | April 23, 2009 4:04 PM
NCSE?
Americans United?
Heck, I'd buy 'em by the boxful and hand 'em out to all my friends and family.
Posted by: John the Skeptic | April 23, 2009 4:27 PM
If you go back to the Civil Rights battles and segregation-era racial violence, I rather doubt that the body count from bigoted anachronarcissism is less than the several thousand of the 9/11 attacks.
Posted by: Azkyroth | April 23, 2009 4:48 PM
@Azkyroth: I don't know about the segregation era itself (I doubt there were 3000 deaths in that short time period) but if you include the KKK etc. and all the lynchings before the segregation era, that's MUCH higher.
However, I don't think that's "right wing" exactly. The two parties shifted their positions so much during the civil rights era that pre-1960 liberal/conservative in the US are not really comparable to modern liberal/conservative. (I don't mean just that the positions themselves have changed, but the ideas. Until the Nazi abuses were revealed, a lot of racism in this country went under the guise of eugenics, which was considered a liberal/left wing position at the time, and was held by a lot of pro-science/leftwing types.)
Those groups don't really have any modern descendants except the KKK and a few really marginal and small white supremacist groups. The major thrust of the right-wing and left-wing sides today is unrelated.
Posted by: sff | April 23, 2009 7:10 PM
Russian church asks to have Christianophobia listed as form of discrimination
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/apr/09042207.html
Posted by: HaHa | April 23, 2009 7:18 PM
"It shows somebody down in the bowels of that organization is either a convinced left winger or somebody whose sexual orientation is somewhat in question.
This is a perfectly reasonable thing to say if you look at the greater context.
In Robertson's world-view, there are "conservatives" (people who agree with him), and "left-wingers" (everyone else). There are no "moderates". To him, the very concept of a "moderate" is absurd. It's like saying, "Well, God is a great guy, but Satan has some good ideas too. They ought to get together and work things out instead of bickering all the time."
Now, suppose a person was a "conservative" who agreed with Robertson but nonetheless worked against him. What kind of motive might such a person have? There'd have to be a disconnect between their inner nature and their outward expression of ideology. A deeply-closeted gay person would fit that description, or really any person who was in denial about some aspect of their sexuality. (They could be in denial about something else, of course, but it seems like sex is the thing most likely to trigger that kind of disconnect.)
So, in fact, anyone who opposes Robertson is almost certainly either a "conservative" with sexual issues or a "liberal".
A lot of the stupid stuff Robertson says actually makes sense if you try to look at it from his point of view. (But don't try for too long. My experience is that thinking like Robertson hurts, which is probably why he's in such a bad mood all the time.)
Posted by: chaos_engineer | April 23, 2009 7:28 PM
sff wrote:
To the best of my research abilities, there are 2,805 documented cases of lynching, thought about 300 of those victims were white (like Leo Frank to choose an example almost at random).
So yeah, it's pretty close. This doesn't take into account undocumented racial violence.
Eugenics a project of the left? Don't even get me started. I had to smack someone for this just yesterday. Look into a book called "Preaching Eugenics" and sites like this (for a start). Eugenics was a NATIONAL shame. It was not the exclusive domain of the right or the left.
Not to mention the Nazis were NOT left wing. They were very much anti-liberal. They were opposed to homosexuality, abortion, evolution, and many other things.
You might want to look into Dave Neiwert's excellent reporting on fascism in America.
Are you going to tell me that Eric Rudolph, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, James Adkisson, Michael F. Griffin, Chad Castagana, John Cummings, Richard Poplawski, Donald Cooper, Paul Jennings Hill, Tharin Robert Gartrell and associates, David McMenemy, Albert Brock, Francisco Martin Duran, Frank Eugene Corder, John Salvi, Japes Kopp, Bradley T. Kahle, Clayton Waagner, Martin Uphoff, Chad Altman, Shelley Shannon, Timothy Dale Johnson, and Buford Furrow are all flukes and not an indication of a persistent philosophy of right wing eliminationist rhetoric?
Please. Do some research next time before talking out your ass. It's quite unbecoming.
Posted by: Bachalon | April 23, 2009 7:38 PM
Ed, quoting Robbo the Deranged:
"It shows somebody down in the bowels of that organization is either a convinced left winger or somebody whose sexual orientation is somewhat in question.
Obvious ad hominems aside, I find the idea that anything ever having had sex with Robbo is a bit...farfetched. And disgusting.
But it's that kind of thing, somebody who doesn't think that we should have abortion on demand, is labeled a terrorist! It's outrageous."
Ah, the Televangelist selective outrage meme in action again; I thought that the DHS report was referring to possible recruitment drives by neo-Nazi or Klan-affiliated groups, but, hey, if Robbo wants to think that it only singles out anti-abortion groups (note that he doesn't even bother to differentiate between non-violent or violent factions of same, probably because the difference is unimportant to his fevered imagination), let him. It's just another indication of how much of a steaming pile he is.
Posted by: Chris Krolczyk | April 23, 2009 8:43 PM
HaHa:
Russian church asks to have Christianophobia listed as form of discrimination
I'll be concerned about their feelings after they drop some of the attacks on the ToE they've been responsible for as of late. Until then, they can sit and spin.
Posted by: Chris Krolczyk | April 23, 2009 8:50 PM
What Bachalon said. Anyone who doubts the very real existence of a far-right proto fascist movement in the United States needs to immerse him/herself in this excellent website.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | April 23, 2009 9:40 PM
Ha! I recommended that same guy. How has he not won any major awards for his excellent journalism? Have you read his newest book? I haven't had a chance to check it out yet.
Posted by: Bachalon | April 23, 2009 9:49 PM
Somewhat OT, are Pat Robertson and James Dobson the last of the "old guard" of the Religious Right? Jerry Falwell, Robert Grant, Ed McAteer, R. J. Rushdoony, Paul Weyrich...all gone. Am I missing anyone?
Posted by: James F | April 23, 2009 10:27 PM
Sorry for the digression from commenting on the direct idiocy of the original comment but...
Problem: Not that there are right-wing proto-fascists who could be considered potential terrorists, but that essentially Ron-Paul libertarians and other libertarian types are being tarred with the same brush. That is where you have to begin to wonder. You might not like those guys, but labeling them potential terrorists is going much further than I am remotely comfortable with.
Oh, hey, sciencebloggers are a kind of scary group of people, maybe we should label them terrorists, they are trying to subvert religious control of the government! And heck they are trying to support subversion of elected personell by forcing them to read the bills and stuff... Dangerous!
In all seriousness, there is a too far, and the governemnt, Shrub or Bub, crossed and are crossing the line all over the place. //And if you can think of a better nickname ryhme for our last two top blowhards I welcome a better one.//
Posted by: rsm | April 24, 2009 3:27 AM
Rsm, actually, Pat Robertson has got it pretty much completely backwards. From what he's said, I think this is the part of the report he's referring to, which is a footnote:
So, in other words, it is NOT those that everyone who opposes abortion are being labelled 'terrorists', it's that the report points out that some of those who are 'terrorists', according to the report, are motivated by their opposition to abortion.
Link to the full report (in PDF):
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/rightwing.pdf
Posted by: Smidgy | April 24, 2009 8:52 AM