Romancing The Unabomber: Fox News ‘Psycho’ Analyst Praises Terrorist’s Manifesto

What can you say about Keith Ablow, the Fox News ‘psycho’ analyst who recently charged that President Obama was waging psychological warfare on the American people? You may recall “doctor” Ablow as the lunatic who actually praised Newt Gingrich for being unfaithful to multiple wives; who welcomed the pain of Americans suffering through the recession; who repeatedly diagnosed President Obama and others without ever having met them. No wonder he was booted from the American Psychiatric Association.

Well, despite all the odds, Ablow has managed to surpass his own Olympian record for demented commentary by writing an op-ed for Fox News paying tribute to the philosophy of convicted murderer and terrorist, Ted Kazcynski, aka the Unabomber.

Keith Ablow
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After making an obligatory condemnation of Kaczynski’s crimes, Ablow proceeds to express his admiration for the ideas laid out in the “manifesto” that the serial killer demanded be published in exchange for his promise to stop blowing people up.

Ablow: “Kaczynski’s ideas, however, described in a manifesto entitled, “Industrial Society and Its Future,” cannot be dismissed, and are increasingly important as our society hurtles toward individual disempowerment at the hands of technology and political forces that erode autonomy.”

Ablow then describes Kaczynski’s work as a treatise in opposition to “the industrialization of America and the world, and our increasing reliance on technology,” which he and Kaczynski believe is “short-circuiting the ability of human beings to think for themselves.” There is kernel of truth in this concept. However, there are also dozens of other, more reputable proponents whom Ablow could cite if he were interested in advancing these theories.

However, Ablow quickly reveals that he isn’t interested in this as a discussion on societal progress. Like everything else he touches, this is just another opportunity for Ablow to disparage the President and hurl screwy psychological insults at his perceived enemies. Ablow is nothing if not consistently obsessed with liberal bashing. His article continues with an overt swipe at “the left” that he borrows from Kaczynski.

Ablow: “He [Kaczynski] saw the political “left” as embracing these technologies with special fervor, because they were in keeping with the “leftist” ideology that centralized power was the way to govern men.

“He saw these “leftists” as psychologically disordered—seeking to compensate for deep feelings of personal disempowerment by banding together and seeking extraordinary means of control in society.”

For those of you who have wondered what the Unabomber thought about liberal politics, it’s true that Kaczynski had some harsh criticisms of leftists in his manifesto. But there are three problems with Ablow referring to them in order to make his point.

First of all, whether or not you have some philosophical agreements with someone like Kaczynski, it is utterly insane to cite him as a corroborating source. It’s like trying to persuade a friend to become a vegetarian because Hitler was one. You might have better results if you use Einstein as an example.

Secondly, even if you were foolish enough to try to associate yourself with Kaczynski’s aversion to liberals, you would have to dishonestly and deliberately hide the fact that he also despised conservatives. Which is exactly what Ablow did. Here is what Kaczynski wrote about the right:

Kaczynski: “The conservatives are fools: They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.”

Even worse, Kaczynski assailed one of the most cherished sacred cows of the right when he wrote this…

Kaczynski: “Conservatives’ efforts to decrease the amount of government regulation are of little benefit to the average man. For one thing, only a fraction of the regulations can be eliminated because most regulations are necessary. For another thing, most of the deregulation affects business rather than the average individual, so that its main effect is to take power from the government and give it to private corporations. What this means for the average man is that government interference in his life is replaced by interference from big corporations, which may be permitted, for example, to dump more chemicals that get into his water supply and give him cancer. The conservatives are just taking the average man for a sucker, exploiting his resentment of Big Government to promote the power of Big Business.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Nevertheless, I would never promote the fact that Kaczynski said something with which I agree. Not when more ethical folks like Robert Reich, or Howard Zinn, or Bernie Sanders, or a thousand other people’s advocates, have also said these things and don’t happen to be deranged killers. Which brings us to third reason not to recruit Kaczynski as an ideological ally: HE’S NUTS!

Still, Ablow expands on his tribute to Kaczynski with the assertion that the emergence of social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) must have caused Kaczynski to have “even more certainty, that he was onto something,” and to “marvel at the ease with which technology taps the ego and drains the soul.” Ablow further speculated favorably that Kaczynski must have wondered whether “the widespread use of GPS…erodes your real sense of direction — on highways and, perhaps, in life.” Seriously. Ablow actually believes that using GPS can erode your direction in life. That would explain why so many people looking for the nearest Starbucks ended up with their noses in copies of Atlas Shrugged.

Now, if you think that Ablow has reached a pinnacle of dementia, you don’t know Keith Ablow. He segues from his comically delusional analysis of new media to his favorite target, President Obama. Ablow sets about to connecting non-existent dots to draw a picture of the President as a master manipulator who is putting “the core of human life” “under seige.” Ablow’s evidence of this is that Obama won election to the presidency “in part, by mastering the use of the Internet as a campaign tool.”

See what he did there? According to Ablow/Kaczynski, technology is an evil usurper of individual autonomy that will destroy traditional values and make us all slaves to Big Government and/or Big Business. And Obama is the master of technology. Could it be any clearer? Obama must be the Techno-Anti-Christ – a demon so rare and powerful that only Ablow is aware of its existence. And aren’t we lucky that he is here to warn us?

So essentially, Ablow, who once declared that Obama “has it in for America,” constructed this whole article as a vehicle to cast the President as a monstrous aberration bent on America’s ruin. The surprising thing is that he enlists the help of a domestic terrorist to make his case. And to insure that no one misses the point, he closes his column with a profoundly flattering review of Kaczynski’s opus saying that…

Ablow: “It is time for people to read “Industrial Society and its Future,” by convicted serial killer Ted Kaczynski. His work, despite his deeds, deserves a place alongside “Brave New World,” by Aldous Huxley, and “1984,” by George Orwell.”

There are some notable differences between Kaczynski’s rambling, psychotic screed, and the inspiring fiction of Huxley and Orwell. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the latter two were gifted novelists who never murdered anyone. And the former is a criminally insane sociopath who has found common ground with a member of the Fox News Medical “A” Team. God help anyone who takes advice from this maniac. And if I were you, I wouldn’t open any packages with Ablow’s name on the return address.

Wonkette: IRSgate Joins Solyndragate and Benghazigate In Fake Scandal Heaven

I’d like to thank Wonkette for saving me the trouble of writing the post-mortem on the phony IRS scandal. After new evidence emerged revealing that groups other than conservative Tea Party organizations were subjected to stricter scrutiny, I intended to write a detailed report exposing the partisan fraud manufactured by Rep. Darrell Issa and his right-wing cohorts.

Tea Party Republicans

But Wonkette just published a superb summary of the affair with an abundance of humor and righteous mockery. So I’m gonna just leave it to them. Read it here for yourself, but here are a few tasty excerpts:

“In addition to being a cosmic turd straight from Satan’s bunghole, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is now just a laughing stock on Capitol Hill. If anyone anywhere takes this clown seriously in the future, we will be shocked.”

Actually, I won’t be shocked. There will be plenty of idiots at Fox News, WorldNetDaily, and the Tea Party Gazette, who will continue to take Issa seriously.

“[S]uck it all you teabagger crazies complaining about how much butthurt you went through while suffering from your goddam persecution complex. Turns out you are all a bunch of whiny babies who jumped the gun before all the facts were in, and now you look like completely incompetent political hacks who are better off crawling back to whatever cosmic bunghole you came from.”

As reported here at News Corpse, evidence has been emerging for weeks that the whole premise of the scandal was falling apart. Most of the principles turned out to be Republicans. Issa was cherry-picking information to release. The more data that was made public, the more obvious their lies became. And now Issa, who had decided before any of this began the President was guilty of masterminding the whole thing, is whining about prejudging.

“Rep. Issa is worried that someone else is jumping to conclusions! We are pretty sure there is a word for that, but at the moment all that comes to mind is ‘fuck that guy.'”

The article is actually full of relevant facts and links, and is well worth a look-see. Thanks again, Wonkette. Now I can concentrate on more important matters like the Fox News “psycho” analyst who is praising the Unabomber (yes, that’s real).

I’d also like to thank Wonkette for their fantastic review of my book, Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Community’s Assault On Truth, that they called “A valuable contribution to the effort to chip away at Bullshit Mountain.”

Judicial Bipolar Disorder: Republicans Respond To Court Ruling

Judicial Bipolar Disorder

This morning the Supreme Court issued a decision on the Voting Rights Act that struck down Section 4 which provided for constitutional reviews of voting practices in jurisdictions where there has been a history of discrimination. As might be expected, opinions began flying around as soon as the news hit the wires. Here are some of the views expressed by Republicans and other conservative figures:

  • Mitt Romney: Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people.
  • Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO): Today, the decision of unelected judges to overturn the will of the people … demonstrates the lengths that unelected judges will go to substitute their own worldview for the wisdom of the American people.
  • Sen. Jeff Sessions: This ‘Washington-knows-best’ mentality is evident in all branches of government, but is especially troublesome in the judiciary, where unelected judges have twisted the words of our Constitution to advance their own political, economic, and social agendas.
  • Rep. Tom Feeney (R-FL): I’m appalled that unelected judges have irresponsibly decided to legislate from the bench and overturn the will of the people.
  • George W. Bush: This concept of a “living Constitution” gives unelected judges wide latitude in creating new laws and policies without accountability to the people.
  • Thomas Sowell: Unelected judges can cut the voters out of the loop and decree liberal dogma as the law of the land.
  • Laura Ingraham: We don’t want to be micromanaged by some unelected judge or some unelected bureaucrat on the international or national level.
  • Gov. Rick Perry: [The American people are] fed up with unelected judges.
  • Pat Robertson: We are under the tyranny of a nonelected oligarchy. Just think, five unelected men and women who serve for life can change the moral fabric of our nation and take away the protections which our elected legislators have wisely put in place.
  • Robert Bork: We are increasingly governed not by law or elected representatives but by an unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable committee of lawyers applying no will but their own.
  • Sen. Orrin Hatch: A small minority and their judicial activist allies are seeking to usurp the will of the people … Ultimately, the American people, not unelected judges, should decide policy on critical social issues such as this one.
  • Glenn Beck: Even if you agree that the role of government is to take wealth from one to another, should it be the role of unelected judges and justices that do this?
  • Justice Antonin Scalia: Value-laden decisions such as that should be made by an entire society … not by nine unelected judges.

If you haven’t already figured it out, these are not responses to today’s decision on the Voting Rights Act. These opinions were expressed following other legal cases where the rulings were contrary to the wishes of these conservative hypocrites. If they had any intellectual integrity, they would be joining liberals who are disappointed with today’s ruling.

When a decision like today’s is handed down, the wingnuts are ecstatic that our judicial branch upheld the rule of law and preserved democracy and liberty. But when the courts rule against them the judiciary is filled with collectivist tyrants who despise freedom and dismiss the people’s will. This demonstration of Judicial Bipolar Disorder is a sad commentary on the state of modern governing. Let’s hope that science can find a cure before too many more suffer from this plague. It would also help if the sufferers believed in science.

Gutting Voting Rights: Supreme Court Gives Racist Republicans Just What They Wanted

This morning the Supreme Court issued their decision on one of the most highly anticipated cases of the year. The Court ruled that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, that provides for review of potentially discriminatory practices in jurisdictions with a history of voter suppression, is no longer necessary.

The Court justified the decision by citing the provision’s effectiveness. The logic there is peculiar, to say the least. It’s an argument for eliminating those things in the law that work best. Would the Justices signing onto this decision ever suggest that, since laws prohibiting murder resulted in a noticeable decline in victim deaths, that those laws are unnecessary and should be dispensed with?

The Voting Rights Act has been doing precisely what it was intended to do for nearly fifty years. It was reauthorized in 2006 with overwhelming support in congress (98-0 in the senate, 390-33 in the House) and signed by George W. Bush. For the Court to overturn the will of the people in this regard tags them as just the sort of activist jurists that right-wingers usually assail. The Act’s usefulness was demonstrated just last year when numerous localities tried, but failed, to implement voter suppression schemes. Here are a few of the cases that were struck down:

Unfortunately, many other examples exist of racist legislation prevailing within states that have dominant GOP representation. The fact that so many attempts to sideline citizens, whether successful or not, have taken place is evidence of the continuing need for vigilance. Initiatives that inhibit registration, reduce voting opportunities, or require extraordinary measures to exercise the right to vote, are still in place or are being pursued.

War on Voting
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The GOP has been surprisingly open about their desire to limit voting to predominantly white, conservative constituencies. Here is what some of their leading lights have had to say on the subject:

John Stossel (Fox News): “Let’s stop saying everyone should vote.”
Rush Limbaugh: “If people cannot even feed and clothe themselves, should they be allowed to vote?”
Roger Vadum: “Registering [the poor] to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American.”
Judson Phillips (Tea Party Nation): “If you’re not a property owner, I’m sorry, but property owners have a little bit more of a vested stake in the community than not property owners do.”
Steve Doocy (Fox News): “With 47% of Americans not paying taxes – 47% – should those who don’t pay be allowed to vote?”

It is also notable that coverage on Fox News of the Court’s decision didn’t run until 20 minutes into their 11:00am (et) broadcast and lasted for about one minute. It followed stories about Edward Snowden, the IRS, George Zimmerman, Benghazi, the Massachusetts senate race, and Snowden again. Obviously Fox needed some time to determine how they were going to spin this news. So they simply announced that the decision was handed down and then waited for further instructions from Roger Ailes or other opinion czars at the network.

While technically this decision throws much of the responsibility for future voting rights back to congress, the reality is that congress in its current form is such a dysfunctional heap of failure, that any reasonable attempts to remedy the damage done to democracy by the Court’s action are doomed to suffer from the same partisan obstructionism that has plagued Washington ever since the GOP decided that its top priority was to destroy President Obama. The only hope would be for the people to rise up and return control of the House to Democrats in 2014. That’s tall order, but one worth pursuing.