Friday Fun Day - HILLARY-OUS

Conservatives are far too willing and even eager to believe things which are factually false, silly, and usually mean-spirited.  It is sad, but it is also SO stupid that it is unintentionally funny.

The right wing fringe craziest thing I've heard this week -- the claim that Hillary Clinton is a Satanist, and protesters are now believing they are somehow striking terror in her because of some sort of exorcism protesting. 

A little context: versions of this have been around for a long time.   They appear to depend on an ephemeral link between Saul Alinsky, a prominent agnostic, dedicating a book to Lucifer -- in whom he did not believe as a reality, but as a symbol of rebellion.

Multiple authorities on his life and work describe him as having been brought up by devoutly religious orthodox Jews, and holding a sense of identity as Jewish as a result of experiencing rampant anti-semitism in his life, but as being personally agnostic (agnosticism - believing religious claims are unknown and unknowable).  Some people believe that anyone who is not an active believer is an atheist, but that is not correct; there are differences between agnosticism and atheism.

By whatever words, Saul Alinsky was not a believer in an actual Satan, and not a worshipper of any such entity.  However since prominent conservative William F. Buckley claimed in a Playboy interview back in 1972 that Alinsky was "very close to being an organizational genius", he's become the boogeyman of the right about whom many factually inaccurate and hysterical things are claimed -- and then used to attempt to tar others with a too-broad brush.

Back in 2011 this sums it up from Patheos:

Saul Alinsky, SATAN WORSHIPPER!

March 10, 2011 by Mark Shea 1 Comment

…is an urban legend.
Just for the sake of clarity, Alinsky was not a “quasi-satanist”. He was an old school Comsymp lefty rabble rouser. His dedication of Rules for Radicals to Lucifer was as much “satanism” as eating devil’s food cake is a blasphemous sacrament offered to the prince of darkness. He was an atheist who liked sticking it to the man and who naturally sided with rebels in any fight. Lucifer is the biggest rebel of them all, so he offered a tongue in cheek encomium to Old Scratch. The urban legend that he was a serious devil worshipper is pure pseudoknowledge.

To conclude from that Alinsky was a Satanist is foolish on the face of it; to conclude that Hillary Clinton is an Satanist because she wrote a college paper critical of Alinsky is just bonkers.  And yet this appears to be disseminated from a variety of sources which conservatives trust to be reliable and authoritative.  And it appears to be consistent that conservatives do not themselves ever fact check reliably, or bother to think logically and clearly; instead they succumb to the worst excesses of propagnda.

From Yahoo!answers.com:

Is Hilary Clinton a satanist?
My Pastor tells me that this is so

This iteration, some of this is from the silly Youtube video about a secret term paper (secret here translates as 'not actually secret' and not leaked); and for the record, Hillary Clinton has been a Methodist for ages.

The ridiculous right, the fringies, are very serious while the rest of us laugh at them.  Especially the religious right has serious problems with a form of delusional thinking that appears to operate as mental illness and wild superstition.

Here is one of the latest going around now for a while:




Then there was this really funny comment on Right Wing News from some yobbo who thinks he scared Hillary Clinton into running away and hiding, like scaring off a vampire by waving a cross at them or relying on garlic.

Christopher John Rozell
July 29 at 11:07pm

CJR- She ran in that building because my sign exposing her Satanic ways scared her half to death! They even put my quote in there and my name Christopher John Rozell! Heck yeah, talk about making a stand and a difference! That's how you be a True patriot and defend this great nation of the United States of America We The People! http://www.stargazette.com/story/news/local/2015/07/29/hillary-clinton-visits-corning/30848243/

Here is what the coverage of the crazies actually wrote, and it certainly was not an endorsement of  this nutjob as clear, cogent political discourse or discussion:

One group of protesters arrived before 4:30 p.m. with signs — one saying “Hillary Clinton is Satanic / I have Proof!” and “GOD Bless AMERICA.”

“I used to be a Hillary Clinton supporter until I researched and educated myself on her,” Christopher John Rozell of Painted Post said.

What is the big fuss about? NOTHING.  Here is the real deal about the supposedly secret paper Hillary Clinton wrote back in college, demonstrating knee-jerking that would qualify as an audition for the Rockettes:

In fact, however, the thesis had been unlocked after the Clintons left the White House in 2001 and is available for reading at the Wellesley College archives. In 2005, msnbc.com investigative reporter Bill Dedman sent his journalism class from Boston University to read the thesis and write articles about it; one of the students, Rick Heller, posted his article online in December 2005.  The thesis is also available through inter-library loan on microfilm, a method reporter Dorian Davis used when he obtained it in January 2007, and sent it to Noonan and to Clinton critic Amanda Carpenter at Human Events, who wrote a piece on it in March. Although publishing the thesis violates copyright,  it can nevertheless be found on various websites.
The suppression of the thesis from 1993 to 2001 at the request of the Clinton White House was documented in March 2007 by reporter Dedman, who read the thesis at the Wellesley library and interviewed Rodham's thesis adviser. Dedman found that the thesis did not disclose Rodham's own views much. A Boston Globe assessment found the thesis nuanced, and said that "While [Rodham] defends Alinsky, she is also dispassionate, disappointed, and amused by his divisive methods and dogmatic ideology."  Rodham's former professor and thesis adviser Alan Schechter told msnbc.com that "There Is Only The Fight . . ." was a good thesis, and that its suppression by the Clinton White House "was a stupid political decision, obviously, at the time."

Was it a stupid decision?  Or just setting up the crazies for a little ridicule?  I'm inclined to think it was more the latter than the former.

Of course, other right wing nut crazies claim Hillary Clinton is an illuminati witch, the anti-Christ, or possibly a man.

Again from Yahoo!'s special corner for crazy people:

Is Hillary Clinton A Man?

I have heard rumors that Hillary Clinton is actually a man, and that his/her lover...is tv's, Cokie Roberts. Is this true?