The Obama Overton Coup Window and other fairy tales
[updated]
It’s January 2011. The GOP is about to assume control of both houses of Congress—having been voted in by a public deeply suspicious of Democrats after President Barack Obama conducted clandestine talks with President Felipe Calderon of Mexico and Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada. But two days before the new conservative majority is to be sworn in, Obama announces that this Congress will not be seated, that the United States (a creation of "racists and warmongers") will be replaced by a North American Union, that the US Constitution will be dissolved, and that private ownership of firearms will be outlawed (as part of a United Nations treaty banning firearms globally). In response, millions rise up, and the Revolution begins.
A Glenn Beck movie project? Perhaps. But it’s also the premise for a new online computer game hosted by a website called United States of Earth.
Apparently, in the game Glenn Beck is found dead of an apparent aspirin overdose (wink, wink) and various other right-wing pundits are rounded up and sent off to death camps or something. Fox News is shutdown by the government. I suppose the rest of the mainstream media, lefty commies that they are, simply toe the government’s line throughout. Bastards.
These patriotic rebels put bounties out on government officials’ heads. It’s like the 60’s but minus the whole peace and love thing.
I just want to know how many levels you have to go up before you get a mount. It better be like five, because I don’t have time to play any game long enough to get much beyond level five.
And if video games just aren’t your thing, there’s always Beck’s new thriller, The Overton Window:
The odd poetry in the trailer is from Rudyard Kipling’s poem, The Gods of the Copybook Headings – a rather odd choice for Beck, but what do I know? Either way, pasting the last two stanzas a Kipling poem into a book trailer is certainly a bold move. I hope they make it into a film so that we can get the entire poem in there.
If video games are your thing, however (and Beck thrillers are not) and you happen to own a Mac, you’ll be glad to know that Half-Life 2 has already been released for the Mac, and tomorrow Team Fortress 2 will be available for download on Steam for Mac. If you already own these games for PC, they’ll port right over no strings attached. Sweet….
Update.
Thanks to Mike Schilling in the comments I fixed “tow the line” and replaced it with “toe the line”. This is the gravest error I’ve made since replacing ‘jibe’ with ‘jive’. Or the time I used ‘reign’ when it should have been ‘rein’. Damn you English!
What’s with the nuts and their north american union fantasies? Why do they fall so hard for that particular paranoid delusion?Report
@Some Popes, I thought it was a UN takeover and a world state, wasn’t it? Same difference really – its symbolic of homogeneity and a loss of peculiar local differences and priveleges. In the context its pretty clear what peculiarities and priveleges the audience is likely to be fretting about.Report
Canada’s resources and Mexico’s labor? Sounds like a pax american dream/nightmare.Report
Yep. The idea of something approaching a “North American Union,” is at least as much feared by Canada’s far left as it is by America’s far right. The reason why Americans would be absolutely terrified about the idea of something that amounts to annexation of Canada and Mexico is beyond me.Report
Weird.Report
Don’t some liberals already want the FCC to crack down on right wing talk radio for spreading “hate speech?” Talk of a US/Canada union reminds me of the Clive Cussler book Night Probe.Report
@Scott, Probably. I’m sure you could find some self-identified liberals who believe almost anything. Why do you care?Report
@Scott, Certainly few to none of the ones in office. Or has a bill been introduced that I hadn’t heard about?Report
@Scott, I read a number of liberal blogs (being a liberal myself) and I don’t recall ever seeing anyone say this–not even in blog comments, never mind blog postings.
You could probably find such if you did an exhaustive search, but practically speaking I think this is a straw man.Report
@Nancy Irving,
I knew this was going to be easy. Maybe you should skip your liberal blogs.
http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/100833-groups-want-fcc-to-police-hate-speech?page=2
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2010/03/08/sean-penn-wants-reporters-jailed-calling-chavez-dictator/Report
“Don’t some liberals already want the FCC to crack down on right wing talk radio for spreading “hate speech?”
Sean Penn thinks they should be jailed. That’s almost as bad as Rosie O’Donnell defending Helen Thomas — Helen meant for Jews to go back to Germany and Poland as these countries are now, without the gas chambers, so that’s okay. Then you have Bill Maher calling an intern’s head at the foot of Max Baucus’ bed — yes, the liberals are all about love speech.Report
@Mike Farmer, oh please mike, that is the lamest of intertoobz conventions. Throw out a handful of famous people as proof regarding an entire varied group. OBTW Mahar much more identifies as some kind of left.libertarian, not a liberal.Report
@greginak,
Funny thing, you don’t deny that the left wants to see the gov’t stop some free speech.Report
@Scott, And you can’t own a dildo in Texas…. Freedom all around I guess.Report
@Cascadian,
I guess like Sean Penn and other liberals you haven’t heard of the 1st Amendment.Report
@Scott, I don’t think you should be allowed to yell “fire” in a theater. I do think you should be allowed to say “I hate fags” or “Christians”. Do you think freedom of religion allows building a place of worship in NY? Do you think freedom includes doing whatever the hell you please in ones own bedroom? I’m sure you’re much more inclusive on freedoms than I.Report
@Cascadian, But you CAN own sex toys IF (and only if) they are intended for “agricultural uses.” LOL…Report
@Scott, And it was only a few years ago that the right-thinkers told me that criticizing the president in wartime was treason.Report
@Mike Schilling, Apparently that rule only applies when the president agrees with the speaker.Report
@Mike Schilling,
And that was just as wrong, so what’s your point?Report
@Mike Farmer, Precisely that wrong comes from all sides, not just “Sean Penn and you liberals”.Report
@greginak,
Yes, greg, libertarians go around saying that the public is stupid and Obama should just drag them along. You people are in serious denial. Get help.Report
@Mike Farmer, ummm huhReport
@Mike Farmer, Sean Penn is an idiot. There are plenty of idiots to go around. These guys are planning a Bush version of this game to appeal to leftie idiots. This one just happens to appeal to crazy right-wingers.Report
@E.D. Kain,
Yes, I know, anyone on the left who says stupid things is just an exception — got it. I’m begining to believe his “closure” thng is simple projection.Report
@Mike Farmer, Yes, of course, how stupid of me. Actors with stupid opinions about talk radio are a threat to the republic, but cabinet officers who want to ban abortion are completely harmless.Report
“North American Union” is code speak for The Union, i.e. the blood enemy of the Confederacy. Some people never got over the Civil War, see… no, really! That’s the basis of the American extreme right… I know it’s ludicrous but there it is.Report
When Bush was going to bomb Iran, cancel the 2008 elections , and take over the government under Presidential Directive #51; the media (being tools of the fascist right) was supposed to go along with the coup. Bastards!
“According to Russotto, the site’s designers despise Democrats and Republicans, and they will show their political balance next week, when the site introduces an “Ambush Bush” scenario, which will give players the chance to hunt down the ex-president in Texas.”
Just a bunch of anarcho libertarians trying to make a buck.
Who cares?
Why do you post this crap?Report
@cfpete, Because I’m a blogger, and in between bouts of deep thought and profound insight I enjoy posting things I find amusing, hilarious, stupid, insane, or otherwise interesting to me. And because I can. Why do you read it?
Oh, and P.S. – I’ve got nothing against these anarcho-libertarian types making this game. I just think it’s hysterical that we’ve come to this point.Report
tow the government’s line
E.D, say it ain’t so!Report
The medium is new but the message is perennial. I have some great paperbacks from the 70s in which liberals establish a socialist government and finally welcome the anti-Christ. My absolute favorite had staged photos in which women were being branded by cops with 666 on their foreheads. If I can find it, I’ll post some pictures here. Then, of course, there was the Turner Diaries, which is about the coming seizure of guns and connected race war. I’ve also got some from the 90s about the North American Union and the race wars that are supposed to result.
I think there probably are equivalents on the left. Honestly, I thought, the Shock Doctrine was a bit nutty. There certainly are survivalist books after society collapses aimed at lefties. And I definitely knew people here in Canuckia who said things to me like, “After Bush gets elected for a third term, he’s planning to annex Canada”.Report
“After Bush gets elected for a third term, he’s planning to annex Canada”.
This is of course true by the definition of the material conditional.Report