Right’s Bedell Reply Shows Disconnect

Although I hadn’t touched on it yet, conspiracy theories are a pet topic and one would be amiss not to note Friday’s shooting at the Pentagon by reported Patriot/9-11 Truther John Patrick Bedell.

Bedell’s alleged Internet writings expressed concerns of a Sept. 11 coverup. More notably, he taps into sentiments common among the libertarian or Tea Party sets — gun rights, mistrust of Obama, etc.

The right has predictably scrambled to its own defense, pointing out Bedell was reportedly for marijuana legalization, registered as a Democrat ['cause, y'know, there are no right-wing Dems... just rainbow flag-wavin', patchouli oil-smellin' hippies into free abortions and orgies...], et al. Melissa Clouthier makes the most entertaining of these claims, “I say, embrace John Patrick Bedell left-wing psycho extremists (that’s redundant, I think). He is yours. The leftist ideology spawns murderous, psychotic behavior. Evil. Evil. Evil.”

Sharp analysis, I know.

That’s almost topped by Ben Shapiro, who argues Bedell being 36 and in college doesn’t befit a conservative.

Debra’s Moore’s right-wing site goes particularly off the deep end, doing everything but directly tying Bedell to Barack Obama (the comment afterward is amusing, by the way). Here, we piece together a narrative where all efforts are made to find inconsistencies to a history that is clearly a right libertarian view, from liking NPR [gasp!] to supporting PETA [um, does anyone on the left actually like PETA? no].

To some of these matters I openly wonder, has anyone not met fiscal and social conservatives who support pot legalization (if they don’t already smoke too), support unrestricted free markets and think Bush was running a war scam? In Texas, we have lots of them, and I doubt politics, right or left, is so mechanical that one has to espouse a particular party line to be considered rightist. Or leftist for that matter. What is at issue is the depths of desperation of extremism. One site states the obvious, “After all, if you truly, honestly believed that the world was run by a secret sect of greedy, murderous overlords, waiting in the wings to destroy everything you love… why wouldn’t you lash out against innocent people like this?”

Did the Obama campaign teach people nothing? An important lesson, I thought, is that politics flows in less partisan terms for the majority of people. The majority of people aren’t consistent in their politics, really.

A personal story: I am a program director for a radio station considered liberal by some people. However, we have lots of politically and socially conservative listeners. Many just like what we do. Some support us because they believe in First Amendment principles, or because they believe in hearing another viewpoint. And a good number of them listen to NPR, or give money to the local Republican Party as well as the Sierra Club. To most mainstream conservatives, in my limited experience, civic concern is a part of who they are, and the ultra right, which reviles Social Security, Democrats, etc. don’t represent them.

Many on the right consider Truthers to be left embarrassment as the Birthers are for them. I’ve never thought of Truthers in the left spectrum myself, considering so many are in the thrall of Alex Jones’ gold-standard, big-lie galaxy. However, I’ve heard of some Truthers who are more left in their politics, as I have Truthers who are right (ala John Birch Society style politics) or libertarian.

The Indypendent recently reposted a 2003 opinion piece by Glenn Beck’s favorite bald communist, Jed Brandt, on extremism and politics. In it, Brandt takes on the Earth Liberation Front, though his points could be applied elsewhere. He writes, “Hating people for the miserable conditions we find ourselves in is corrosive – and a sure sign that ‘radicals’ are isolated and out of touch. Extremism is taking reformist politics to the level of violence. Radicalism is getting to the source of the problem and organizing broadly to build people’s power.”

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