The Guano Loco Style

This stupid, belligerent, non-communicative tactic is part of the new style--the Guano Loco Style. It isn't about talking about issues--oh hell no. It isn't about talking. It isn't about facts, and it isn't about policy. It's about confused footsoldiers incoherently shouting. And it's about well-paid lobbyists sometimes just lying their asses off.

And both things aren't great reflections upon their supporters. But instead of calling them B*t-sh*t Cr*zy like I seriously could, I'll just call them practitioners of the guano loco style. Crazy is the new serious, it might seem.

And if that were so, Orly Taitz is the new prophet of whackologism. Oh--this bit is about a really fake birth certificate that the internets already knows is so totally a fake:



(Um, Ann Coulter, despite what Orly Taitz thinks, is an attorney, or at least has a verifiable law degree. She might be an uber-partisan, but she at least kind of has a clue what she's talking about--even if I'd interject that she isn't always intellectually honest.)

It doesn't matter if you know by now that "EF Lavender" and the "Republic of Kenya" are dead giveaways. To the practitioner of the new, guano loco style, that fraud was just a plant by the Obots to discredit a valid movement. After all, they're mainstream, now.

Oh, Lou Dobbs is guano loco, too. And Glenn Beck, who not too many days ago intimated that the president might be a racist who doesn't like white people, except when he likes them, is possibly certifiable. He says unaccountable things--guano loco things.

The Teaparty Mad Hatters and sleepy dormice and other assorted Wonderland creatures in the "civil disobedience by the disinformed" movement are also sheer guano loco. They play at being very serious whilst toasting in effigy their local congress critter, or mimicking being wounded by being turned away from an already full house. "Oh noes--it is teh Brownshirtz!" they cry.

Er, no. It is the fire code, and the "healthers" is teh stupidz.

Their message?

"Health care" is the new "death camp".

AARP is in favor of Soylent Green. (The "End of Life" option--boogedy!)

There will be rationing! Zoinks!

(Except, of course, the fact is that people who don't have coverage or have inadequate coverage are rationing right now. They make the choice to not see a doctor if they can't afford the visit, or don't get a test that isn't covered, even if their doctor might believe it to be necessary. They see doctors, even specialists, on the basis of whether the doctor is on their plan. And they take meds based on affordability, too. Some people, especially older people, might try reducing dosage to maybe feel half-well. With the predictable result--sometimes people self-ration out of good health, or self-ration and have that big coronary that carries them off. Or they opt to go for the health care that no insurance is paying for--and pay more than their provider would have paid if they had one--oh yeah, and they go bankrupt. Whoo. Let's hear it for choice! People choosing between bankruptcy and death from untreated conditions! YAAAAY!Oh wait, no....that sucks. And "sucks" describes what we have right now--hmm, maybe somebody should work on fixing it?)

So we have Ben Stein and even such a light as Sarah Palin weighing in (kudos to Jake Tapper on his comprehensive take-down of that load of crazy) echoing sheer nonsense. And they sound....guano loco. Not merely partisan, not paranoid--but actually cuckoo.

Where does all this lead?

Dobbs' job's at risk.

Glenn Beck is losing sponsors.

Ben Stein loses his column, although it's because he's a wretched shill for a credit report company, and not because he's shilling for the health care industry, or creationism, or Comcast (all of which are kind of evil.)

And Sarah Palin is still totally Sarah! And she doesn't lose a thing, because we love her when she's nonsensical! It's what she does best! Especially if she's quoting Michelle Bachman, who always makes a certain internal logic, to the kind of people who see black helicopters everywhere....

In short, crazy is the short-lived and edgy fashion of the day. But like any edgy fashion, I think this will come back to bite people. Maybe they will be embarrassed by the snapshots, or rather, sound bites, that will haunt them later. Or maybe they actually discredit something far more important--civil dialogue? The criticism of Barack Obama that really isn't insane and is based in coherent policy disputes? The health care debate that actually pretends to be about who is paying for what and how much is covered? See--that would be constructive.

The guano loco style is anything but.


(Disclaimer--this took me a week to write because I really had a hard time soaking in the crazy long enough to write about it. I finally figured out what my point was--don't you wish everybody did?)