The US Day of Rage Takes a Trip Into Right-Wing Conspiracy Land:
The Rude Pundit was a-perusin' the latest missive from the Super-Duper Prayer Team of the nutzoid Christian Family Research Council (motto: "The all-powerful Zombie Ghost Jesus will never get here if we're nice to the Palestinians"), and he came across something that made him quizzical or, more precisely, made him exclaim, "What the fuck is that?" The Rude Pundit joined the Super-Duper Prayer Team a few years ago under a nom de rude, and, every Wednesday, he receives his "Prayer Targets," a list of shit what we gotta get on our knees and work that prayer knob over until it blows a load of grace in our faces.

Here's what the FRC said about the Day of Rage: "The mainstream media has avoided the story but bloggers left and right are abuzz with news about this emerging, radical, leftwing movement that will debut this Saturday. The '60's-style protest is targeting Wall Street, NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Austin as well as Israel with future protests planned elsewhere." Now, this blogger left likes to consider himself up on stuff that's going down, especially if there's gonna be a big-ass 60s-style protest (which has to mean ass and grass or maybe just some free Ben and Jerry's) in his backyard.

Oh, and it sounds ominous: "The group's website declares its intentions as peaceful, but it uses warfare language and reports say its leaders have been trained in violent tactics that match that rhetoric. The events threaten to play out like the recent violent protests in Great Britain. Movement leaders have close ties to the founders of ACORN and leaders of major U.S. unions. A closer look reveals that the movement's goal is far more than a socialistic protest against capitalism, but is a genuine effort to disrupt the markets, do real economic damage, and bring down the United States." Great googly-moogly, that does sound fun.

So the Rude Pundit toddled off to the linked website to find out how he could have missed out on what's become all the rage (fuck, yeah, he just made that joke). And there he was greeted by Marlo Thomas.

No, seriously, the America-destroying motherfuckers who want to fuck Wall Street bankers with Karl Marx's femur say that their theme song is "Free to Be...You and Me" from the 1974 TV special Marlo Thomas and Friends. That, along with the 5400 people who "liked" the Day of Rage on Facebook, surely guarantees that world markets will be brought to their knees and that Seattle Starbucks windows will be shattered again.

Now, this is not to criticize Marlo Thomas or those who may end up protesting on September 17 (although it might have been more effective to "occupy" Wall Street on a weekday). The goal of the multiple protests is admirable: to call for "free and fair elections" in the United States, untainted by corporate and special interest money, among other things. Transformational movements have begun with far fewer people involved. So, you know, go team.

No, what's fascinating is the way that even some fairly innocuous progressive action is called out as insidious, traitorous, and, of course, socialistic. The SDPT email points us to rabid mouthfrother Michelle Malkin, who aligns the Day of Rage with an interesting action by 400 union longshoremen in Washington (which deserves its own discussion). As a way of showing how vicious and awful the union members are, she includes a video of their action, which shows a dozen people milling around near a train track with a bunch of cops watching them. And nothing happens, but it looks like it was a nice day, so there's that. It was probably evil, though.

What we're seeing is the beginning of another trip into the conservative megaphone where relatively minor stories are blown up as a way of discrediting anything that isn't sucking capitalist cock. Sure, as the FRC points out, the mainstream media is ignoring the Day of Rage. For the right, it blows because they want to hate on some liberals and yell, "Bill Ayers" and "ACORN" and "SEIU," all the code words for hatred of Uhmerka, the shorthand of the imbecilic grunting that passes for discourse.

The Rude Pundit wishes that the event, which is billed throughout as peaceful (and, c'mon, Marlo Thomas?), was receiving coverage so that there could be some motherfuckin' masses raging.