The Propagandist was launched as a reaction to the surging conquest of the public square by political extremists. That includes the over-the-top conservative movement we call The Tea Party in the USA. We're for "thinking conservatives", not lobotomized reactionaries.

When we criticize extremists and demagogues, we don't just mean those on the left who talk of a worker's paradise in Cuba and Venezuela. We don't just mean those who say that Iran not only has a right to build nuclear weapons, but actually needs to do so. It's not just the Che Guevera T-shirt wearing, Hezbollah-flag waving weirdos.

The political right is infiltrated by kooks as well. The Tea Party billboard shown above represents something rotten with the trend of conservatism in the American landscape. It ain't helpful to our struggle; it helps the other side smear all conservatives as unhinged whackos.

Sadly, few Tea Party activists will get the irony of their advertising slogan, "Radical Leaders Prey On The Fearful & Naive" accompanying US President Barack Obama sandwiched between Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin.

The nonplussed shrug-your-shoulders response of the Tea Party organizer in charge of the putting up the billboard shows how clueless he is about why the advertisement was criticized. Talking about the replacement billboard he was planning, North Iowa Tea Party co-founder Bob Johnson said “It’s going to be little more bland... We paid for a month, so we don’t want to waste the money.”

A little more bland than comparing the Democratic President to Nazis and Communists? I suppose putting Obama's face between Kim Jong Il and Atilla the Hun might be considered taking it down a notch in some circles.

The sad things is that if the growing movement gets the revolution it wants, the deluded rank and file won't even realize the damage they've done to their republic -- all in the name of liberty.

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist.