DHS Report: Rightwing Extremism

[jmm99]

from Bourbon
It was certainly a trigger for Tim McVeigh.

love of the 2nd Amendment was not one of them.

Amen, Schmedlap.

[jmm99]

The subject of rightwing extremism is today's hot topic across the cable spectrum - secession seems another. So, I was treated to one of the nuttier interviews I've seen in a long time - so nutty that I had to look for the video and the transcript to make sure that I got it right.

So, we have Countdown, Keith Olbermann and Janeane Garofalo:

OLBERMANN: ... On a more serious note, we're now joined by actor, activist Janeane Garofalo. Good to see you.

JANEANE GAROFALO: ... And you know, you can tell these type of right wingers anything and they'll believe it, except the truth. You tell them the truth and they become -- it's like showing Frankenstein's monster fire. They become confused, and angry and highly volatile. That guy, causing them feelings they don't know, because their limbic brain, we've discussed this before, the limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it's pushing against the frontal lobe. So their synapses are misfiring.

Now this got me thinking about the glories of eugenics, applied phrenology - and the picture of mobile DHS vans with MRIs and CATs to detect and register all those with enlarged limbic brains.

Much more in the interview.

--------------------------
A brief tour of the limbic brain is here. The controversy about its functions are here and here.

[Uboat509]

You have got to love it when pseudointellectuals try to spout science that they don't really understand and it's even better when they try to throw a cheesy partisan spin on it.

SFC W

[jmm99]

at both ends of the spectrum, as Ted (Jedburgh) and Watcher predicted a few posts ago.

Since I don't think JG is a "clear and present danger", or that she will be running DHS any time soon, I wasn't specially concerned with her scientific analysis. But, I thought it illustrated two larger problems.

One is broad-brushing - tossing your perceived opponents into one disparaged basket. E.g., all Sunnis (or all Shia) are bad folks because ____________. From thence, sectarian violence becomes justified.

The other is that broad-brushing becomes even more effective when it can be supported by science (or theology). So, eugenics and phrenology became accepted by many in the US as tools to shape society, etc. - which illustrate that even a center-oriented nation can go off half-cocked.

[Schmedlap]

The subject of rightwing extremism is today's hot topic across the cable spectrum - secession seems another. So, I was treated to one of the nuttier interviews I've seen in a long time - so nutty that I had to look for the video and the transcript to make sure that I got it right.

So, we have Countdown, Keith Olbermann and Janeane Garofalo:

The first few times that I saw the spectacle that is Keith Olbermann, I thought that I was watching an MSNBC version of the Colbert Report. The guy is so far over the top that he is a caricature of himself. Sometimes I wonder if he is just going to eventually yell into the TV camera, "you idiots! You took me seriously all these years? Are you that crazy?" He holds forth with prose that is so exacting and deliberate in its grammar and rhetoric, delivered with such a serious demeanor and such flawless diction, that I often think he's simply trying too hard to carry on with a farce. Underneath the grammar, the stern face and square head, the prose - what he's actually saying is utterly foolish; sometimes fantasy, sometimes conspiracy, almost always inflammatory garbage. He can't possibly be serious unless he is insane. Given the effort that goes into the delivery of what is essentially nonsense, I have to believe that he is an actor who is never out of character.

OLBERMANN: ... On a more serious note, we're now joined by actor, activist Janeane Garofalo.

Classic.

[jmm99]

When Olbermann started out, he was from a sports background. He managed to have at least one sports segment and a funny animal story (one of my weaknesses, together with Meg Ryan comedies). The rest of the stories were pretty much centric (well, center-left and more akin to the old NBC).

That was then; this is now.

Impelled I suppose by the ratings quest, KO strove to become a re-incarnated Ed Morrow. And, of course, the on-going feud with BillO, who sometimes manages to impersonate a more moderate form of Father Coughlin.

Hey, the FNC-MSNBC lineups from 7-10 (Shep Smith excepted) is better than WWE. I love being infuriated - good for circulation.