Excellent piece by Richard Kim in THE NATION on the Baggers:

[saltpoint]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100412/kim

[depakid]

1. The things right wing nutters obsess on rarely fail to impress

This of course is no exception.

Ironically, outside of a very small number of people in academia, no one knows who Frances Pliven is- much less read any her work.

If you were to ask anyone who Saul Alinsky was, for example- most folks wouldn't know unless they were some conspiracy theorist or were old enough to remember first hand the Nixon administration!.

It's like they think we're all carrying around the little red book of Chairman Mao (which most young people in America wouldn't know who the fuck was either).

[saltpoint]

3. Hi, depakid.

Yep -- the movement is depending on the near-total ignorance of its followers. Palin, as dumb as we may think she is anyway, is even dumber to sign on to a strategy like that. She may not even understand it herself.

These are dangerous people who "do not know what they do not know."

[JHB]

2. Man, they must hate the Russians...

They just can't give up the whole "on orders from Moscow" meme, but they've been flailing about to make sense of it ever since the Evil Empire dissolved. I mean, Ed Meese floated "political correctness" once we hit the point that even the dinosaurs had to admit the fall of communism wasn't just "a trick to make us drop our guard", but PC was always too nebulous to be a foe itself. Durn Rooskies!

But, no problem! Now we're all "on orders from Saul" or Cloward-Piven. Or Woodrow Hitler or somebodyrother. Who needs ideology when you have cults of personality and anti-personality?