Wingnut Woodstock: The Sequel (Update)

A Foxbot eagerly awaiting his marching orders

Following up on last year’s preview of the annual gathering of  CPAC convention, this year’s keynote speaker is none other than Glenn Beck. Other featured speakers include Dick Armey, John Ashcroft, Rep. Michele Bachmann, John Bolton, Andrew Breitbart, Tucker Carlson, Liz Cheney, Ann Coulter, Sen. Jim DeMint, Wayne LaPierre, and Newt Gingrich.

That’s a whole lot of crazy in one place.

While I was unable to find a single reference to the conference theme, given that some 16 of the presentations are titled “Saving Freedom” from one thing or another, the attempt to co-opt the Teabagger movement into the Rethuglican Party is a bit obvious.

On Friday there is Saving Freedom for Future Generations, featuring Jason Mattera,  author of Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation. The second is tilted Saving Freedom from The Enemies of Our Values, featuring Phyllis Schlafly. Then there are Saving Freedom Through Technology: Growth of the Online Movement and Saving Freedom from the Tax Collectors. Saturday there’s another five Saving Freedoms, and on Sunday another seven, including Saving Freedom from the Hoax of Global Warming. I guess “Saving Freedom” polled well in a Frank Luntz Teabagger focus group.

Other presentations include They Want Us to Shut Up: Saving Freedom and the First Amendment, a panel featuring among others, J.D. Hayworth. Guess they didn’t get the memo about the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling that gave filthy rich corporations all the free speech and Congressmen their billions can buy.

And for those who pine for the good old days of the Confederacy, don’t miss Friday’s When All Else Fails: Nullification & State Resistance to Federal Tyranny.  Maybe Texas Governor Rick Perry will make a guest appearance and repeat his call for Texas to secede from the Union.

I have to wonder, though, why CPAC would feature on its front page an endorsement from a self-admitted war criminal:

CPAC has consistently over the years championed those ideas that have made America great: limited government, free enterprise, low taxes and a strong national defense.” – Vice President Dick Cheney

According to Thom Hartmann , who is attending and doing his radio show live from CPAC, Darth himself just made a surprise appearance, to great cheers. Thom considered making a citizens arrest, but Cheney, who admitted on ABC ‘s This Week show last Sunday that he was an enthusiastic proponent of the his administration’s torture policy, was surrounded by a squad of taxpayer funded Secret Service agents. Thom demurred, saying that it was Eric Holder’s job.

Too bad. Would have been the event’s only worthy headline.

UPDATE:  Here’s an excerpt from the manifesto/suicide note from Joseph Stack, who flew his plane into the  building housing the IRS office in Austin, Texas, this morning.  Apparently,  he too is consumed with Big Brother’s takeover of the US government, beginning and ending his screed with this:

Well Mr. Big Brother IRS man… take my pound of flesh and sleep well…

I know I’m hardly the first one to decide I have had all I can stand. It has always been a myth that people have stopped dying for their freedom in this country, and it isn’t limited to the blacks, and poor immigrants. I know there have been countless before me and there are sure to be as many after. But I also know that by not adding my body to the count, I insure nothing will change. I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at “big brother” while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough.

I can only hope that the numbers quickly get too big to be white washed and ignored that the American zombies wake up and revolt; it will take nothing less. I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are. Sadly, though I spent my entire life trying to believe it wasn’t so, but violence not only is the answer, it is the only answer.