DHS report reveals more than it meant to

I’ve been saying for a bit now that right-wing extremism is approaching scary levels. When it’s considered mainstream media to sob on air that the Democratic president is a communist Muslim that’s going to steal your liberties, one can only imagine what the fringe is doing. The Department of Homeland Security seems to agree, as they’ve released a nine-page report detailing the potential concerns that Obama’s election and the economy may cause in the form of lunatics on the right.

Unsurprisingly, the right in the larger sense is apoplectic, calling this nothing short of a massive abuse of power by a radical liberal administration seeking to quash any and all dissent. Michelle Malkin calls it a “shoddy… piece of propaganda”, some jerkoff at Hot Air calls it a “war on federalism”, WorldNetDaily is again rampaging along with its pants on its head. Buckle up for the Limbaugh and Hannities to sink their teeth into this one.

You can read the report for yourself (and I suggest you do), but keep in mind that there’s really nothing incendiary in it. Obama was the target of roughly three assassination plans even before he got elected and if you needed proof that the economy is making people go looney tunes just check out the tea parties today. Now keep in mind this is the first dang paragraph:

Threats from white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts. Nevertheless, the consequences of a prolonged economic downturn–including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit–could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.

The report isn’t about shuffling conservatives off to the gas chambers like the Malkins and whoever else are claiming. It’s about keeping an eye on supremacist groups for upticks in membership and activity because they could be using the current situation as a tool.

However, what I alluded to in the title was something that Glenn Greenwald touches on but misses slightly. He astutely brings up the case of Ashcroft’s sending the FBI after left-wing activist groups, which caused absolutely no fury from the right. No issues when Fahrenheit 9/11 hit and Moore interviewed the various small groups and individuals who found themselves targeted by investigation simply for holding the wrong viewpoint.

Where Greenwald sees it as a case of hypocrisy (that is, as long as I’ve got the power it’s fine, but when you do it’s unfair), I don’t see this to be a case of pure selfishness. Again, notice the rhetoric and compare. During the Bush years, liberals assailed the surveillance and infiltration as the Bush Clan considering dissent un-patriotic and thus dangerous. Now, conservatives are calling the DHS report an indication that Obama wants to silence “real Americans” and that the Constitution is forbidden reading.

Ah, there’s the rub. The reason right-wingers didn’t care before was because liberals aren’t patriots. Liberals are America-hating socialists who want to burn bibles, hand nukes to Al Qaeda, and destroy capitalism so we all live on communist farms. Of course the FBI should be watching those lunatics! Conservatives, on the other hand, are true red-blooded American heroes who hold the flag in one hand and the Declaration of Independence in the other, so if the DHS is watching them it must mean we’re on the road to the pure destruction of freedom and democracy itself.

The irony is that most of the powers Obama is apparently abusing are powers that conservatives were positively giddy to give Bush. In a monumentally short-sighted move, all of these shadowy and hidden powers were handed over the Dubya with absolutely no thought into what would happen when the next president came around. For most on the left, who was wielding the power was less important than that it was being wielded. As a writer on the Seminal aptly notes, it doesn’t matter to me if Obama can be better trusted with any given power than Bush, the point is neither should have it.

Right-wingers like the SodaHead jackasses want us to dance a constant line of deciding if this group or that group, this president or that president, is “patriotic” and then acting accordingly. Spy on the ACLU by all means, don’t let Markos from DailyKos on airplanes, and keep the reins tight on Obama, but don’t you dare come near right-wing groups and if we’d had John McCain we’d be giving him even more power. Seems the idea of “disagreement” doesn’t exist, either you’re pro- or anti-America, and the anti-America guys are in charge so all us poor patriots are in trouble unless something happens quick.

You know, something to dispatch that communist president who’s using his power to make homeland security target anyone who disagrees. We need to do something about this. Make it quick, though, he’ll be taking your guns soon.