Anti-Obama Paranoia Leads Man to Kill His Family

I'd like to start this, by expressing my very sincere condolences to the friends and family of the slain. This was a terrible tragedy, no matter your politics or creed.
It should also never have happened.

As it says in this article, a Virginia man named Albert Peterson -- a defense contractor with a history of mental illness -- was so paranoid about the prospect of Barack Obama winning the November election, that he not only killed himself, but his wife and two sons. I'm prepared to be wrong about this, but I can't recall ever hearing about this happening before, at least in North America.

Clearly the man was already unstable, but I can't help but wonder if his paranoia was fed to an extreme degree, by the sort of insane rhetoric that we see from Fox News, right-wing talk radio, and the Tea Party. On Blogspot ALONE there are bloggers who blather about Obama being a scary Muslim socialist, out to kill grandma and retarded babies, who has already driven people to suicide over the economy, and who will "rightly" be kicked out in the election -- despite not a single one of those statements being true to date (and HIGHLY unlikely to ever be true). It is also why I find it galling, that Google has been slow to take down an anti-Muslim hate film that played a direct part in a global crisis that has killed 50 people to date, why it took the FBI several weeks to arrest any of the people responsible, that various blog moderators refuse to penalize users that post inflammatory material, and that the Tea Party is almost never held accountable for its long history of violent threats.

How many people have to die? When is enough, enough?

If you're not a liberal, fine. If you would never vote Democrat, fine. But remember, when someone says "I'd rather die, than see _____ in the Oval Office!" it's not supposed to be taken literally. As much as I loathe Mitt Romney, Stephen Harper, Tim Hudak, etc. it would take a lot more than their usual antics, for me to consider killing myself over them. I'd much rather try to vote them out.

And please, to anyone reading this, who knows someone THIS upset over the election, GET THEM TO A HOSPITAL RIGHT NOW. I don't care if they rave about "socialized health care", or if you normally don't trust it yourself -- it's either that, or more of THIS bullshit happens.

It's LONG past time, America, for you to get your act together. Your people's lives are now quite literally depending on it. Enough said.

2011 Douchebag Finalists

July's Morons of the Month

There were some big winners this month, but let's start with a fairly local pest...

• Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and his brother, Councillor/Deputy Mayor Doug Ford, for not only being exposed as totally out of it when they claimed there was a lot of wasteful spending at the City of Toronto (turns out there isn't), but being so bound and determined to balance the books that they are cutting services and increasing taxes, despite promising not to in last year's election. Of particular stupidity here -- besides an incident where the Mayor flipped off a mother and child, when they pointed out he shouldn't be driving while using a cell phone -- are proposed user fees for walking through parks (I'm totally serious), and closing several of Toronto's libraries despite them signing out millions of items in the last year alone. Those supporting the latter, claim that they no longer serve a purpose that can't be met by the private sector, evidently unaware that there are a lot of poor people in Toronto!


• The Democratic and Republican Parties, for continuing to bash their heads against the wall, instead of doing ANYTHING about the fact that the American government is about to owe more than its allowed amount of money. This particularly goes to various conservatives who are totally against the super-rich paying their fair share of taxes (despite the obvious need to generate income... and the fact that even companies that pay no income taxes at all, are moving American jobs overseas), and to the Tea Party lunatics who actually insist that defaulting on debt IS A MYTH. Um... how about they ask the MANY unemployed Americans that they claim to represent?


• Sun Media, for backing out of the Ontario Press Council, because they think that the regulatory board is "too politically correct". Since a recent smear attack/interview on little-watched Sun News has set a record for the number of complaints lodged with Canada's version of the FCC, I can only guess that "politically correct" is now being used to describe "telling the truth" and "not kicking someone below the belt".

Now, onto the meat and potatoes.

• Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks, and News Corporation, for their part in the now-infamous British phone hacking scandal. Not only have the far-right tabloid wranglers been accused of (and often charged with) hacking the voice mails of celebrities, but they've apparently tampered with the voice mails of several British politicians (and leaking whatever they hear about, like what then-PM Gordon Brown's son was sick with), eavesdropped on the Royal Family, hacked the phones of dead soldiers and terrorist victims, and erased voice mails belonging to at least one murdered schoolgirl, whose killer remains at large. In other words, they have been accused of MAJOR felonies -- often with the assistance of British leaders and policemen, incidentally (the scandal has cost at least two top cops their jobs, and shaken the Prime Minister's Office). Not only that, but Murdoch's staff and their supporters claim that this has been MADE UP, and they did nothing wrong!


• The (hopefully few) supporters of Norway terrorist Anders Brevik, for openly praising the actions of a man who killed MANY children, but often trying to blame it on Brevik's victims. I personally have seen countless far-right pundits blame the mass murder on Muslims and liberals (who were the intended targets), which is akin to blaming the Jews for the Holocaust. Particularly disgusting was Glenn Beck stating on his radio show, that the children at the camp run by Norway's Labour Party -- a party founded to fight the Nazis, incidentally -- IS JUST LIKE THE HITLER YOUTH. Real classy, asshole.

The Right Wing's Reaction to Norway

While most of us have been civilized enough to be disgusted by last week's terrorist attack in Norway -- and the chilling manifesto that the killer has been allowed to put on the public, though it -- there is also a not-insignificant amount hardline conservatives who reject all suggestion that he did anything wrong.

For instance, Open Diary user Watcher of Freedom (one of many conservatives who already post tons of Anti-Muslim articles) actually made a comment that the shooting will be used as a propaganda tool for liberals. On Yahoo News alone, there are TONS of users who blame the murdered children for this attack, and are calling this sick fucker a world-wide hero!

THIS INCLUDES GLENN BECK, WHO COMPARED THE DEAD CHILDREN TO NAZIS!

...

...

...Let me explain this to you.

The Norway bomber/shooter murdered over seventy people -- including kids at a day camp -- just because they don't hate Muslims. He -- and those who support him -- want to spark a revolution against Muslims, who have immigrated to the West; a final solution, if you will. Some of them -- including the shooter -- have gone so far as to create a militia, to accomplish this. Hell, the shooter -- who openly admits to what he did, but sees nothing wrong with mass murder, by the way -- actually wrote a 1,500 page manifesto about why Muslims and the people who accept them, should be wiped out!

And yet -- according to far-right wing nutbars and their apologists -- it's not THESE PEOPLE who are like the Nazis, but people who are non-violent, care about the people around them, and don't think that the greatest threat to any nation is that there are more brown people living in it than there were twenty years ago.

I'm just going to come out and say this: if you don't see why this is utterly absurd and appalling, don't get within three feet of me.

Because that's how far I can punch.

Response to Arizona Shooting

2009 Douchebag of the Year

Obama Derangement Syndrome

The Fundy Bible