Ultimately we are going to end up having to fight these people.

[Warren Stupidity]

I don't see this ending peacefully. There is a well organized, well funded, hard right populist movement in this country, and they are intent on taking power and having things their way, and their way is totally unacceptable to me. It is fight or flee when it comes to the time to make a decision, and that time is not too far in the future.

[juajen]

1. I hope you are wrong. I love many people who are conservative.

[pgodbold]

7. I love some too but only because they are family. nt

[Divine Discontent]

29. I do, too. However, many of them are so brainwashed & send me amazingly stupid email fwds & they

swear the stuff contained in them is real. No matter how many times I reply to the various GOPers who I know well, and tell them the truth, not only with links but video proof, they stilllllll keep believing the lies and insanity of people like Beck... it's just scary.

I am concerned they're brainwashed somehow...

[Cal33]

32. The majority of the right-wingers are made up of people

who have been fooled by the pathological lying, treachery and corruption of their
psychopathic leaders. Most Americans don'trealize that these are sick people.
Psychopaths are not fit to rule our nation. They are nothing but trouble and
can't help but bring ruination and disaster to whatever they touch. We've got
to help our fellow Americans understand this. Do not vote for the Neocons.
They are the most dangerous of all the unqualified candidates for office. Their
unstoppable greed brings nothing but suffering, misery and death to our nation.

Every now and then someone writes about psychopaths holding responsible
positions in high places. I've written a long post myself in this forum more
than a year ago. I don't know how much understandidng of this mental illness it
has brought to the readers.

[Supply Side Jesus]

2. Naaa....

They're too chicken shit to put their ass where their mouths are.

They are a dying breed...

I'd like to see their flanking maneuvers on their rascals...

[mwb970]

63. They are kind of on the elderly side.

On the other hand, have you ever been smacked with a walker? Those suckers pack a real wallop!

[Supply Side Jesus]

66. The Walker Rebellion!!

:D
funny visuals

[Atticus]

3. I'm not fleeing. nt

[flvegan]

4. You mean, like, physically fight them?

[midnight armadillo]

22. I hate to say it

but it wouldn't be the first time in US history. I am by no means advocating violence, but the history of the labor, civil rights, and anti-slavery movements quite clearly demonstrate that wrestling power from the right wing/corporatists/racists/slave owners took quite a bit of violence. If the political pendulum somehow swings against the Tea Baggers (how? how many left wingers are in positions of real power? I can't think of any) the response is likely to involve violent actions.

The right wing has it easy. They just call left wing leaders bad names for a while and wait for them to turn into jellyfish and hand power to them.

[Warren Stupidity]

44. it may come to that

we are going to have to at the least be willing to put our bodies on the line.

[BlueJazz]

5. People have often joked about "Splitting up the country" but one day it might be ...

...a necessity to keep the left and the right from killing each other.

[mayya]

70. Here is the ONLY solution...

We are two different cultures. Right now, each side votes on how the other side lives, and it makes no sense. Here is the ONLY solution...

[Lagomorph]

73. I wouldn't go dragging Canada into this, myself.

They might not like you dividing up their country.

[babylonsister]

6. Why? I wish they would be ignored myself. They have nothing to

offer, and even today's rally appears to have been a yawn. I think the hoopla preceding this was overwhelming, but the reality was anything but.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201008280028

snip//

In the works and in the news and eventually the subject of much controversy for much of this year, the actual "Restoring Honor" rally was a strange and often tepid affair

snip//

That's why Bert Melli was one of more than 100 people huddled in the pre-dawn pitch blackness at 4:45 a.m. yesterday in a shopping center parking lot in Havertown, Pa., waiting for a bus. "We have to let people know they are unhappy with the direction of the country," said Melli, a 78-year-old retiree. "This is a way to get their attention."

But what Melli and the other heated overheated masses got instead on a languid, partly cloudy August day was an event that at times felt like the Jerry Lewis Telethon, minus the comic stylings of Shecky Greene. There were lengthy homages to the Special Operations Warrior Fund, the charity that will benefit from a portion of the $5.5 million that Beck claimed he raised for the event, and the awarding of Badges of Merit including one for "Hope" to St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols, who like some of the other speakers credited his devotion to Jesus Christ. For long stretches, the masses -- some a half-mile or so from the stage -- seemed mostly disengaged from the ceremonies, some staring at the ground..

[NJCher]

8. one word, errr, number

2012.


Cher

[elleng]

9. 'Fight' how, is the question.

We should observe for how long msm goes along with them, continually challenging the outright lies, and strongly and clearly countering misunderstandings. We must appeal to reason of moderates, centrists, and reasonable conservatives, of whom I believe there are many.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

10. The people they don't like will vastly out-number them soon.

That's why they're putting up such a fuss now, and why they won't matter so much soon.

[MadMaddie]

15. Yes this is true but it is the damage that they will inflict upon

this country until then.

[aquart]

11. So democracy is a failure and only killing succeeds? At what?

Foolish us, trying to engage the Israelis and Palestinians in peace talks.

What a fool Bill Clinton was, to go to Ireland.

[amandabeech]

36. Things are not going great in N. Ireland right now.

The marching season was nasty, and the Provos and New IRA are active again.

I think that there was a bombing recently in England attributed to one of those groups or a clone.

My own view is that when jobs go away, prejudice comes back.

I think that best thing that could happen here is for Obama to dump the current economic orthodoxy and do something serious about jobs.

When people know where there next meal is coming from and that they will have a home next month, they are generally more agreeable and less likely to vent their feeling in negative way.

I don't want to see a continuation of bad Clinton economic policies divide the country even more than it would be otherwise, but unless Obama changes, that's exactly what will happen.

[LoZoccolo]

12. And yet only one DUer can think of five tangible and constructive things

that they can do to meet their political goals.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9034541

My point is, if more of us got off of our asses and worked to establish more good sense and judgment into the electorate, through the means already set up by our political system and bill of rights, people wouldn't be freaking out on the Internet right now making these highly speculative predictions about the future of our country.

The truth is, we have a revolution every two years in this country; work on that one and don't make excuses not to take simple steps every day to move some people away from their side and toward ours. Do that regularly and consistently and I think we won't have this nightmare scenario you are predicting (I don't think we're going to have it anyways though). Persuasion takes time and patience, fighting smart rather than hard, but is ultimately the only way to really win in a democracy. You must build consensus and I don't think there's any reason not to work on it.

[MadMaddie]

17. The basis of having a more educated electorate is

fixing the broken education system in the U.S. When you have Texas religious radicals dictating curicullum for school books that go across the country there is something seriously wrong.

Since the Reagan era the Republicans have continually attacked the education system in America. They have attacked the scientific community continually.

On a daily basis people who have been fortunate enough to get advanced education are demonized as elitest.

As long as this continues it will not get better. As long as people like Beck, Rush and Sarah continue to go unchallanged with their historical distortions the viewers and listeners will continue going down their path of ignorance.

[tkmorris]

25. Don't be absurd

You only got one reply to your thread. Stuff happens. It doesn't mean only one DU'er could think of an answer to your question. Why would you want to insult DU like that? And, if we all suck so bad, why are you here?

[LoZoccolo]

34. This happens almost every time I start such a thread, for years.

And why would I want to insult DU like that? So they make sure that I can't do it again.

I didn't say that you all suck so bad.

[Warren Stupidity]

45. How do we get this 'more informed electorate'

when the mass media is owned entirely by the right? The 'electorate' us getting stupider by the minute as far as I can tell.

[LoZoccolo]

56. Why are you relying on the mass media to inform them? n/t

[Warren Stupidity]

60. it has something to do with 'mass' in the term 'mass media'.

the internets are not reaching them, and the plan to make the internets an actual mass media include walling off the highspeed part for the exclusive use of the same corporations that gave us Mr. Beck's revival meeting.

[LoZoccolo]

65. Or the Internet?

This is hilarious; you're like "oh there's going to be a big fight" like you're urging people to prepare, and nothing you've dismissed as an alternative has involved you leaving your house.

[Warren Stupidity]

68. huh? you are the one who proposed the internet.

I think leaving the house is exactly what we have to do.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. I've been saying this for a couple years now

We are in the midst of a revolution right now. The fighting has just begun and much violence lies ahead.

[PFunk]

14. I fear you may be right...

...as there comes a time which you can't no longer work with the other side. And I fear it may happen in my lifetime (and this Beck BS is not helping things any). So the signs I'm watching for is america getting more 'stratified'. Red states becoming more red and the blue states becoming more blue with both pushing the more states rights thing. Especially as this country gets more racially diverse (with white's losing their 'majority' status). When that happens then you'll start to see fireworks (followed by the US' downfall).

[Lothar]

20. And then after the fireworks, this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hj5rcHVSvs

From 0:06 - 1:27. I always figured that if that were to happen, it would probably involve one aggressive international adventure too many, going too far for the rest of the world, and our defeat followed by partition between the EU towards the east, Canada towards the north, a pan-Latin American partition towards the south, and a pan-Asian alliance of some sort towards the west. I for one hope to be in (or flee to) a more hospitable sector if I don't wind up maimed or dead.

[Odin2005]

16. Not "Populist", FASCIST!

They cannot be reasoned with, only crushed.

[Warren Stupidity]

42. fascism and populism are closely related

populist movements are at least as frequently rightwing as they are left.

[riderinthestorm]

18. K & R.

We are at the point of "fighting" them verbally already. What's next?

We tried ignoring them, we tried ridiculing them. But their numbers at the Mall demonstrate that we've moved beyond that.

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. I've been fighting them for the last ten years.

Where the hell have you been? You think the take-over of the radio stations was the only take-over? Try the state attorney offices, judgeships and lawyers. A lot of graft has been tolerated in red counties around Florida during the Gingrich-Bush years. Where do you think some of that money went to?

You know what we need? Independent attorneys who are willing to represent people who are caught in these autocratic communities.

[conspirator]

21. The right are just dumb thugs. The only people you should fight are the ones manipulating them:

THE RICH

[hack89]

23. Or we can win elections. nt

[PJPhreak]

24. My biggest issue here is,

That the hardcore rightwingers are armed,very well armed (Hence the ammo shoutage this year) and if provoked they may very well start shooting.

In my part of the country a majority of folk have firearms,LOTSA Firearms...This could turn out very badly.

[DongHa69]

39. And you will

find a hell of alot of us Liberals are well armed also and we are well stocked up on ammo, at least this Liberal is. I have enough weapons to arm my neighborhood if needed, but I hope it doesn't come to that.

[PJPhreak]

41. I agree,But a lot of Liberals are not,

And those folk become easy targets.

[Warren Stupidity]

43. I agree so the issue really is how to fight them, in my opinion.

And armed confrontation will not work out in our favor.

[DongHa69]

61. I'd say fight them

with logic, but how do you inject logic into the stupid?

[Vehl]

26. nah, they are a vanishing breed and they shout the loudest because of that

the same way a candle might flicker bright before it goes out.These fundies will be all gone in a decade or so...let them shout to their hearts content now

Statistics show that the millennial generation is overwhelmingly democrat...much more than the previous generations. Furthermore...the millennial generation is also overwhelmingly liberal..

[Jade Fox]

37. The brilliant Philip Slater writes.....

the same thing in his woefully under-read book "The Chrysalis Effect: The Metamorphosis of Global Culture", that extreme forms of religions and social movements emerge when they are dying. The extremism is an attempt to revive something passing inevitably away.

http://www.philipslater.com/

This is why I have trouble taking the Tea Party etc. very seriously. We are not going back to the American they imagine, even if every person in America wanted that to happen. Most of what the Right is currently advocating is based on turning back the hands of time. Good luck with that.

[Vehl]

59. Thank you for the info,

Ill check his book out.

and yeah..the tea-party thing might be in effect for maybe 10 years..at most..before they go extinct.

[gulliver]

67. Adding Slater to my reading list.

Thanks!

[Warren Stupidity]

48. this vanishing breed astro turf fake movement is

actually the fastest growing and most successful populist movement in 70 years. It has the Republican Party in its sights and could very well take over that half of the duopoly this year or next.

[Vehl]

58. i doubt they can do anything in the long run except to hurt the republicans

actually the fastest growing and most successful populist movement in 70 years

Fastest growing? Most successful? i doubt it

But even if that is the case, it does not detract from what im saying. That this is the last desperate action of a set of ideologies and worldviews which are becoming obsolete. The drowning man shouts the hardest, the swimming one does not.

Actually its a good thing for democrats if the tea-party subverts even more of the republican party. They will drag the republicans to the bottom along with them.maybe not in time for the next election..but certain in a decade's time.

its a statistical fact that the millennial general is overwhelmingly liberal and democrat. and the vast majority of the republicans and fundies belong to the older generation. As the poster above said...the tea party wants to go back to a bygone era...it can never happen.

the only constant is change..those who fight it are bound to lose.

[PJPhreak]

64. "These fundies will be all gone in a decade or so"

Don't kid yourself...the folk you see on TV are the folk who have the time and cash to travel...I will speak for my part of the country and say that those on tv are only a small portion of the "Freeps" that are out there,we have many that are younger,much younger.

I had a chat with a 19 year old kid at work about a year ago,nice kid,clean cut,educated,smart,informed,tech savy....TOTAL FREEPER! He belived everything that his parents and Fux Noise told him...And he is not,by far and away,alone.

Here in S.E Kansas there LOTS of Freeper Spawn,a Chitload of 'em in fact

[EstimatedProphet]

27. You're right. We will have to

They are not going to go away regardless. If we win in November, they will get louder and more violent than they have been already.If they win, they will start in on an attack campaign with the power they won. This is what bullies do.

[Swamp Rat]

28. That's what bullies do until they get their asses thoroughly kicked

The more they push the rest of us around (the vast majority of the U.S. population), in their desperate attempt to force 'Jim Crow II' and 'John Wayne Reaganworld' on the rest of us (the vast majority of the U.S. population), the worse their end will be.

[npk]

30. They are only tough talkers on the weekends

You are forgetting that these people are basically cowards. Yeah they will talk all tough on the radio, when the call Beck, Limbaugh and the others, but when the time comes to really commit insurrection against the government they will shrink off. Of course they will continue to talk tough and intimidate people as much as they can, but they aren't big on action. It's not so much the loud teabaggers that you have to worry about, it's that quiet guy down the street that hardly ever comes out of his house and when he does he ignores you all together. All the while late at night he is building a pipe bomb in his basement. THose are the kind of people that I worry about.

[proteus_lives]

31. No thanks, Chicken Little.

We are no where near civil conflict.

[Warren Stupidity]

49. that would be the 'ultimately' part.

And we have been in civil conflict, the so called 'culture war' for 30 years. The point is that the conflict is not getting better, it is getting worse, and a well funded radical rightwing faction is grasping for control of one of the major political parties. You can chicken little me all you want, I will draw no satisfaction from being right.

[struggle4progress]

33. When Clausewitz said "War is politics conducted by other means," he knew

what he was talking about

Any armed conflict has an enormous political dimension

For this reason, even if one were convinced that a civil war or revolution were in the making, one must nevertheless generally continue to organize to win the political struggle

If an armed struggle eventually breaks out, political organization does not at all become obsolete: it is important during the conflict and essential at the end of the conflict

Truthfulness and ordinary human decency have a certain definite propaganda value, because ethical issues underlie many political fights

Thus, in the early stages of a potential armed conflict, there is considerable advantage to being disciplined enough to engage in nonviolent political action: if opponents are violent in response, this can be publicized in any effort to expose them

The objective of nonviolence is not to escalate tensions and hostilities unnecessarily; it goes without saying that a peaceful political process is almost always preferable to an armed conflict; it also goes without saying that a peaceful political process is not always possible

A major armed conflict is a decade of misery followed by several generations of bitterness. We should pick our fights carefully

Conclusion: Organize! Organize to meet people and to learn to work with them and to discover who is reliable and who is foolish and who is untrustworthy and who is indispensable! Organize to learn how to talk with people and how to analyze your successes and failures! Organize to become disciplined! Organize to discover how to get a message out! Organize to study how your opponents react to what you do!

[Steely_Dan]

35. When You Think About It...

This all started so long ago. We didn't stop it then. Things have gone too far and now we will have to fight them. I wish people would have listened back then.

-P

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

38. These guys?

Fat toothless diabetic fucks on power chairs?

I'm more worried about constant OKC style terrorism than a second civil war with this bunch.

[JVS]

40. Take that up with the "keep the powder dry" crowd.

[northofdenali]

46. Shotgun - check. Rifle - check. Handgun - check.

I hunt, because the meat's better, and better for you. But don't try to change my political stance to YOUR religion, because that shotgun is mean.

[MajorChode]

47. Or you can just let them fizzle out which they will inevitably do

Whichever side wins the presidential election results in a surge of the fringe on the other side. By the time the mid-terms are over, everything swings back to the middle. This is just history repeating itself over and over. If the right wants to pour all of their money into the fringe nut groups, more power to them. Ultimately it only hurts their cause as it permanently alienates many in the middle.

[bluethruandthru]

50. Can't we just give them their own land - Texas maybe - where they can have

their conservative Utopia?

No taxes for the rich, everyone elses taxes will just pay for the military..which is the only thing that the government should provide - according to them. All private schools for those who can afford them, no minimum wage, no health care for anyone unless you pay through the nose for it; no environmental protections, no regulation of businesses or banks, no abortion, no birth control, welfare or any social services, no public libraries or police or fire departments, no roads unless privately built, no public transportation, no restrictions on gun ownership of any kind.. I could go on and on!

Paradise for teabaggers!

[Paladin]

55. I Think They'd All Be Happier In Maryland.

In your neighborhood.....

[Nuclear Unicorn]

51. Unrec and heartily so

The entire OP is a load of crap.

How many threads on on this forum decrying the fear-mongering of the right wing yet this thread bathes/wallows/rubs fear-mongering on its face like the money shot from some debased porn film.

We supposedly depose the RW for war-mongering but we're talking about violence over a lost election?

So the right might win an election.

OK, they win an election.

And who would have thought we would have taken back congress in the middle of Bush II with 2 wars and conspiracies of Diebold whirling like a dervish?

But we did.

Yet at the prospect of losing an election suddenly we're debating killing our neighbors, friends and family?

WHAT. THE. FUCK!

Which one of you computerized chest thumpers is going to fire the first shot or set off the first bomb?

I doubt any of you will.

But one thing you should not doubt is my absolute lack of support for this sort of lunacy.

Grow-up.

I see children in sand boxes resolving their disputes with more realism and maturity than this load of bilge.

And while you're out there taking about murdering people ask who it is you're going to carry into the halls of power because for the last year all I've heard is how the last group we carried to power continues the wars, bows to corporations, steals money for the banksters, continues to stand on the neck of our LGBT brothers and sisters and is just as imperialist, corrupt and invasive as the one we left behind.

Who would we put in office?

Dean?

Kiucinich?

Are you going to carry them on your shoulders while Obama has to employ the police and army to stop you?

Would real, honest, peace loving progressives even let you carry them into office under force of arms?

Stop telling me about the wars you want to start; tell me about the fights you want to end.

crap crap crap...this OP is nothing but chest-thumping, circle-jerking crap

[Warren Stupidity]

52. oddly I never once mentioned killing or blowing up anything or anyone.

I said we are going to have to fight them. You have interpreted that in your own way. I see other alternatives.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

53. Then you might want to straighten out the 40-some-odd other posters

who seem to think you did.

And if you didn't mean violence, then what?

Did you suddenly wake-up and say, "Golly, there's an election soon. Maybe we should campaign or something."

We are campaigning and vigorously (though I don't know why considering how much vitriol wrapped in conspiracy we lob at our very own reps here at DU).

I'll take you at your word but do you really think we aren't doing anything on the political front as if we have just conceded the entire arena of ideas?

Really?

[Warren Stupidity]

54. like the ones quoting Gandhi?

no thanks, I'll let people think for themselves.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

57. Well, your OP says you don;t see it ending peacefully

Sorry if I took the OP at face value.

And you haven't really rushed out to set straight those saying the RW has to be crushed or braggin about how many guns they own.

Maybe it was my unrec...because admitting one unrecs something is far more threatening than bragging about how many guns one must have to crush someone whose politics you don't agree with.

Foolish, silly girl will go away now.

Sorry to have been a bother.

[GSLevel9]

62. the right has never had staying power

or real commitment to their beliefs... ignore them and they'll go away.

[Sallow]

69. Fight an Astroturf movement?

This will eventually die down. I am perplexed by the media at large that makes this look like a bigger "movement" then it is. The Tea Baggers may be well funded and have a fully functioning propaganda unit in FOX "News" but it's choking on it's own extremism.

[Radical Activist]

71. No, these are Dale Gribble cowards.

They don't have the balls to confront anyone in person. They like the passive activity of being entertained by the radio. Only a few crazies will get violent individually by their own initiative.

[hfojvt]

72. "What usually happens, when people without guns, stand up to those with guns?"

"Do you like music, Mr. Finch?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98W7zg2ByKY

[grahamhgreen]

75. Ask Ghandi. (the people win)

[grahamhgreen]

74. The fight is with the ultra-rich overlords - not the people they've conned into being on their side.