Oath Keepers As Protectors of the Power Elite

Paul BibeauPaul Bibeau is one of today’s most brilliant satirists. Last week he wrote, What If They NEVER Come For Our Guns? I was going to use it for a quotations post, but there was nothing I felt I could cut, so you will just have to click over and read the whole thing. As you can probably guess from the title, it is written from the perspective of an Oath Keeper or other right wing Protector of Freedom™. But it’s a very special one who has started to have doubts. Certainly Obama is going to take away all the guns, but “the guy’s in year seven, and he’s really taking his damn time about it.”

For many years, I’ve been arguing that people who focus on conspiracy theories are missing what’s actually going on. There are the Jade Helm 15 types who have allowed their union jobs to be destroyed and their standards of living decline all while they worry about the coming marshal law. There are also plenty of liberal conspiracy theorists who do the same thing. But when you get down to it, all of the conspiracy theorists have a populist core that is upset that the power elite is rigging the system against them.

The rich have steadily warped the tax system so that they pay less and the rest of us pay more. But this is apparently too uninteresting to care about. And the rich have done a great job of limiting government programs that help the poorer classes. But again: not exciting. And the rich have managed to destroy unions while the middle class stands by and cheers. But who cares about such normal workings of society? It’s like documentaries about archaeological digs where we learn about the social structure of the Inca. Who cares about them when there are documentaries about how space aliens must have helped the Inca, because obviously they were too stupid to figure this stuff out.

Here is the core realization in Bibeau’s article:

I wonder if it’s possible that all this is the plan. Like maybe the people in charge of this country don’t really have to steal the guns. Not if they’ve stolen everything else while we’re out here doing Wolverine Drills in northern Idaho…

Maybe rich people just used the information age to bushwhack us. And part of how they did it was by intervening in countries all over the world to dominate their governments and markets, which created the blowback that justifies this bloated security state and keeps us all terrified of foreigners so we don’t ask questions. And you and me and most of the guys in Hannity Team… well, we’re all vets of these campaigns, and some of us are cops and intelligence guys. So, it almost seems, sometimes, like we’re doing this guerrilla warfare role-play thing as a way to avoid thinking about how they already won the game. And how we kind of helped them.

If only we could get these people to think about this stuff. One thing that I continue to marvel at is that people have been saying this stuff for my entire lifetime. Yet their predictions continue to fail. They really are like people in cults whose faith only gets stronger as the prophecies crash and burn. But Bibeau really strikes at the heart of the central irony that these people who think they are fighting the power are actually doing its bidding.

This entry was posted in Politics by Frank Moraes. Bookmark the permalink.

About Frank Moraes

Frank Moraes is a freelance writer and editor online and in print. He is educated as a scientist with a PhD in Atmospheric Physics. He has worked in climate science, remote sensing, throughout the computer industry, and as a college physics instructor. Find out more at About Frank Moraes.

4 thoughts on “Oath Keepers As Protectors of the Power Elite

  1. There is the feminist saying that homophobes are men who are terrified of being tried like women. I feel the same way about conservatives, libertarians, “patriots,” freedom fighters and Constitutionalists when it comes to race and liberty. They are white guys who are terrified of being treated how black people are treated right now.

    When they talk about being under relentless surveillance, disarmed, isolated, bled to death with fines and assessments and other economic sanctions, tortured, kidnapped and ultimately rounded up into prison camps, they are describing the lot of black people right now. Their nightmare scenarios of a heavy handed state are reality for black Americans. The more that a white person talk about looming and potential threats to their liberty, the more likely they are to label the next unarmed black man, shot by the police, as a “thug.”

    • You’ve noticed, I’m sure, the “all lives matter” backlash to the “Black Lives Matter” movement — claiming that “Black Lives Matter” is reverse racism! (Um, that movement isn’t calling for discrimination against white people.)

      I read a good letter to the editor yesterday. Someone pointed out that car owners don’t feel unfairly left out when bumper stickers read “Start Seeing Motorcycles.” That’s brilliant!

Leave a Reply