I have often said that I find Joe Bageant’s blog depressing because of his merciless depiction of the decline of the West. Well, I can’t exactly say I find Muskrat Hunt depressing, mainly because it is somewhat lightened by Doogman’s acerbic and jaundiced sense of humor. But although not depressing, it is, underneath the humor, scary—and getting scarier by the day.
What scares me is the many links he posts to YouTube clips showing the disgusting depths of racist hatred being displayed at pro-McLame and/or anti-Obama rallies (e.g., “Very white kinda pride” 10/19; “This is un-American” 10/19 ; “These white people ARE trash” 10/15). But what really raised the terror alert to code red was “The cycle of violence” 10/21, which linked to a podcast on “Campaign for America’s Future” that featured someone discussing what she called “far-right eliminationist rhetoric,” which is a fancy way of referring to rabid wingnuts talking about killing us. To put it bluntly, if you think the far-right rhetoric is ugly now, wait until they feel really threatened by the resurgence of liberal activism and start violently acting out their rage and fear. Wild animals always fight most fiercely when they’re cornered, and the far-right is, quite correctly, beginning to feel cornered and very threatened, and they’re going to be acting it out in increasingly nasty, vicious ways. I’ve already mentioned (8 Sept “Who cares? It’s all lies.”) the possibility of Obama getting assassinated, and the meaner and scarier the racists get, the more imminent the threat becomes. He combines the vulnerability of Martin Luther King with that of John F. Kennedy, and no number of Secret Service men can ultimately protect him from another Lee Harvey Oswald in another school book depository, particularly if the agencies responsible for protecting him suddenly and mysteriously get negligent in doing their job. The racist thugs may be losing political power, but they still have influence and probably money, and money has its own power. And where money fails, sheer evil meanness can always accomplish a lot.
Perhaps the scariest thing about these maniacs, and one of the most difficult for us to comprehend, is that they are convinced they’re right and are thus impervious to any kind of argument or dissuasion. In fact, the attacks and criticisms they get from people for whom they have nothing but hatred and scorn simply convince them all the more firmly that they’re right. They believe firmly and unshakably, by upbringing and acculturation, that America is or should be a white Christian nation, and that they have a God-given duty to eliminate anyone who tries to make it otherwise. Atheists may blame this belief primarily on the perverted dens of iniquity which masquerade as Christian churches in Dixieland and its cultural extensions, and they doubtless do share a large part of the blame, but I suspect it has its followers among people who got it from elsewhere. This conviction is based on the simple fact that racism is not part of Christian belief in any of the mainstream churches outside the Deep South, and is in fact vigorously (but not vigorously enough) opposed and condemned by them. Racism has cultural and psychological roots much deeper than simple heretical belief.
Still ten days left for an October Surprise. Halloween would be a good time to scare the living shit out of the whole nation, woonit?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Preaching to the choir
On 28 September, Muskrat Hunt posted a notice of an anti-Palin rally in Boulder on Saturday 4 October. More out of curiosity and an excuse for a half-decent walk than out of any show of support, I thought I’d drop by to see what was happening. The post said the walk would begin at 9:00 “somewhere near 28th Street” but failed to specify 28th and what, so I just arbitrarily parked at the Millennium Harvest House motel south of Arapahoe. At 9:00 there was no sign of any demonstrators walking down 28th Street—nor of very many people walking at all, in a culture where most people go to heroic lengths to park as close as possible to the entrances of the businesses they patronize. Still no one at 9:15. I was mumbling cynically to myself about not expecting anything better in the People’s Republic of Boulder, when finally, at about 9:35, I saw some sign-carrying demonstrators straggling past Safeway. If I hadn’t stopped to take a shit at Dead Robin, I’d have missed it.
So, not wanting to waste the trip into Boulder and having nothing much better to do, I joined this rag-tag pack of about 25 to 30 adults and a few baby-strollers (and one dog other than Major), carrying home-made signs which were about equally anti-Palin and pro-Obama (the only one of which showing the slightest originality being one that said “Polar Bears for Obama”), as they strolled up the main north-south highway in the People’s Republic. Most of the drivers-by honked their support, of course, as one would naturally expect in the elitist yuppie ghetto of pseudo-liberals which constitutes Boulder. I’d almost have welcomed a few who threw empty beer cans at us or yelled “Love America or leave it, terrist assholes!” It would have at least been the beginning of some sort of dialogue.
The whole exercise was a classic example of preaching to the choir, and when I’d almost given up on it before 9:35, I was attributing the failure, not to the slightest shred of support for Palin, but to the general prevalence of my own attitude of “What’s the point? What would it accomplish?” If such an event had been staged in some place like Colorado Springs or Loveland, it might have served the purpose of making a few on the other side think twice about their loyalties, but in Boulder it was just another piece of narcissistic circle-jerking by said elitist yuppies and had absolutely no effect on the opinions or decisions of anyone in the other camp. Several times in my posts I have echoed Bageant’s contention that the liberals are going to go down in flames yet again unless they make some effort to reach across the gulf and try to communicate with the other side. However, I also admitted, in “Dialogue with raving lunatics” (17 September), that such an attempt might be doomed to failure by the intransigence of the “mouth-frothing psychopaths of the ultra-super-hyper-fringe-right.” But such a statement itself epitomizes the reason why such dialogue is nearly impossible. I’m the first to admit that I’d be the last to try to open up such dialogue, just as I’m among those who call the opponents insulting names. More and more commentators are observing that civil discourse has almost totally broken down in the political arena, replaced by increasingly polarizing, vituperative, and hysterical name-calling and demonizing. This is not the way to reach amicable resolutions of problems; this is the way wars start, and the present climate of political “debate” is approaching, or has long since reached, a state of verbal war.
Mark Udall’s opponent (whose name I don’t even know) in his (Udall’s) run for a Senate seat naturally attacks his record as a Representative, again for reasons I don’t know because I don’t watch any campaign commercials; and I think I’ve already stated that I don’t have a lot of use for Udall myself, for various reasons. However, just to see what the lesser of two evils has to say for himself, I opened his site (www.markudall.com, not surprisingly) and read the page on “Mark’s Established Bipartisan Record,” in which he boasts about his consistent efforts to “reach across the aisle” (a.k.a. the gulf) in order to accomplish things by consensus rather than by battle. Of course one could probably protest that many of the things he accomplished this way shouldn’t have been accomplished because they didn’t fit the more hard-line agendas of one leftist faction or another, but the fact remains, he deserves some credit for being among the few who try to bridge the gulf, in a climate where such moderation is railed against as a betrayal of “liberal principles” (whatever they are).
My niece in Longmont sent me a delightful satire of the yuppie elitism of liberals which I so scorn. (Also, obviously, a satire of the outcry against illegal Mexican immigrants). As I told her, liberals need to be told once in a while how ridiculous they can seem, particularly in the perception of rednecks. I’m not very clever at embedding links, so I’ll simply cut-and-paste it.
From the MANITOBA HERALD, Canada (a very underground paper):
The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration.
The possibility of a McCain/Palin victory is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they’ll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O’Reilly.
Canadian border farmers say it’s not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal rights activists, and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.
“I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn,” said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota.
The producer was cold, exhausted, and hungry. “He asked me if I could spare a latté and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn’t have any, he left. Didn’t even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?”
In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. “Not real effective,” he said. “The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn’t give milk.”
Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border, and leave them to fend for themselves.
“A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions,” an Ontario border patrolman said. “I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet, though.”
When liberals are caught, they’re sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the McCain administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to shoot wolves from airplanes, deny evolution, and act out drills preparing them for the Rapture.
In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to prove they were alive in the '50s.
“If they can’t identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age,” an official said.
Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies.
“I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can’t support them,” an Ottawa resident said. “How many art-history and English majors does one country need?”
So, not wanting to waste the trip into Boulder and having nothing much better to do, I joined this rag-tag pack of about 25 to 30 adults and a few baby-strollers (and one dog other than Major), carrying home-made signs which were about equally anti-Palin and pro-Obama (the only one of which showing the slightest originality being one that said “Polar Bears for Obama”), as they strolled up the main north-south highway in the People’s Republic. Most of the drivers-by honked their support, of course, as one would naturally expect in the elitist yuppie ghetto of pseudo-liberals which constitutes Boulder. I’d almost have welcomed a few who threw empty beer cans at us or yelled “Love America or leave it, terrist assholes!” It would have at least been the beginning of some sort of dialogue.
The whole exercise was a classic example of preaching to the choir, and when I’d almost given up on it before 9:35, I was attributing the failure, not to the slightest shred of support for Palin, but to the general prevalence of my own attitude of “What’s the point? What would it accomplish?” If such an event had been staged in some place like Colorado Springs or Loveland, it might have served the purpose of making a few on the other side think twice about their loyalties, but in Boulder it was just another piece of narcissistic circle-jerking by said elitist yuppies and had absolutely no effect on the opinions or decisions of anyone in the other camp. Several times in my posts I have echoed Bageant’s contention that the liberals are going to go down in flames yet again unless they make some effort to reach across the gulf and try to communicate with the other side. However, I also admitted, in “Dialogue with raving lunatics” (17 September), that such an attempt might be doomed to failure by the intransigence of the “mouth-frothing psychopaths of the ultra-super-hyper-fringe-right.” But such a statement itself epitomizes the reason why such dialogue is nearly impossible. I’m the first to admit that I’d be the last to try to open up such dialogue, just as I’m among those who call the opponents insulting names. More and more commentators are observing that civil discourse has almost totally broken down in the political arena, replaced by increasingly polarizing, vituperative, and hysterical name-calling and demonizing. This is not the way to reach amicable resolutions of problems; this is the way wars start, and the present climate of political “debate” is approaching, or has long since reached, a state of verbal war.
Mark Udall’s opponent (whose name I don’t even know) in his (Udall’s) run for a Senate seat naturally attacks his record as a Representative, again for reasons I don’t know because I don’t watch any campaign commercials; and I think I’ve already stated that I don’t have a lot of use for Udall myself, for various reasons. However, just to see what the lesser of two evils has to say for himself, I opened his site (www.markudall.com, not surprisingly) and read the page on “Mark’s Established Bipartisan Record,” in which he boasts about his consistent efforts to “reach across the aisle” (a.k.a. the gulf) in order to accomplish things by consensus rather than by battle. Of course one could probably protest that many of the things he accomplished this way shouldn’t have been accomplished because they didn’t fit the more hard-line agendas of one leftist faction or another, but the fact remains, he deserves some credit for being among the few who try to bridge the gulf, in a climate where such moderation is railed against as a betrayal of “liberal principles” (whatever they are).
My niece in Longmont sent me a delightful satire of the yuppie elitism of liberals which I so scorn. (Also, obviously, a satire of the outcry against illegal Mexican immigrants). As I told her, liberals need to be told once in a while how ridiculous they can seem, particularly in the perception of rednecks. I’m not very clever at embedding links, so I’ll simply cut-and-paste it.
From the MANITOBA HERALD, Canada (a very underground paper):
The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration.
The possibility of a McCain/Palin victory is prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they’ll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O’Reilly.
Canadian border farmers say it’s not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal rights activists, and Unitarians crossing their fields at night.
“I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn,” said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota.
The producer was cold, exhausted, and hungry. “He asked me if I could spare a latté and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn’t have any, he left. Didn’t even get a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?”
In an effort to stop the illegal aliens, Greenfield erected higher fences, but the liberals scaled them. So he tried installing speakers that blare Rush Limbaugh across the fields. “Not real effective,” he said. “The liberals still got through, and Rush annoyed the cows so much they wouldn’t give milk.”
Officials are particularly concerned about smugglers who meet liberals near the Canadian border, pack them into Volvo station wagons, drive them across the border, and leave them to fend for themselves.
“A lot of these people are not prepared for rugged conditions,” an Ontario border patrolman said. “I found one carload without a drop of drinking water. They did have a nice little Napa Valley cabernet, though.”
When liberals are caught, they’re sent back across the border, often wailing loudly that they fear retribution from conservatives. Rumors have been circulating about the McCain administration establishing re-education camps in which liberals will be forced to shoot wolves from airplanes, deny evolution, and act out drills preparing them for the Rapture.
In recent days, liberals have turned to sometimes ingenious ways of crossing the border. Some have taken to posing as senior citizens on bus trips to buy cheap Canadian prescription drugs. After catching a half-dozen young vegans disguised in powdered wigs, Canadian immigration authorities began stopping buses and quizzing the supposed senior-citizen passengers on Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney hits to prove they were alive in the '50s.
“If they can’t identify the accordion player on The Lawrence Welk Show, we get suspicious about their age,” an official said.
Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies.
“I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can’t support them,” an Ottawa resident said. “How many art-history and English majors does one country need?”
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Stop the planet and let me off
Anglophile that I am, there are times when I think the United Kingdom might be more bizarrely insane that the Divided States.
Browsing the BBC News a few days ago, I ran across the following headline: “Designer vagina trend ‘worrying.’ ” Yes, you read that right. (However, even if you understood it correctly, you may not have read it correctly. Remember that the Brits would read “designer” with the last syllable pronounced –ah, so as to rhyme designer with vagina.) Yes, increasing numbers of women in England are getting cosmetic vaginal surgery—for “aesthetic reasons.” This ranks up there with lunatics who put various pieces of metal in and through their penises. Do these nut-jobs really expect many people to care that much about how their genitals look? Are they going to exhibit themselves or something? Do they think it makes them more sexually attractive? Aren’t we all attracted to guys with rings stuck through their dickheads? Imagine these guys going through airport security. The metal detector goes off near the crotch, and the security scanner looks quizzically at the proudly mutilated traveler. . . . A recent search on types of genital mutilation (don’t ask why I was searching this) turned up some absolutely horrifying examples of what people do to themselves—or sometimes have done to them by others. Enough to keep one awake at night. . . .
Almost every day brings me fresh news to convince me that I don’t belong on this planet. I was left here by some alien civilization as a punishment for some horrible crime I must have committed on my home planet, but I can’t remember what crime or what planet—maybe one of the Galilean moons of Jupiter. (My astrological sign is ruled by Jupiter; isn’t that proof enough?) Earth is to alien intelligent creatures what Australia used to be to Earthlings: a sort of penal colony. The Weekly World News (my former alternative reality source—now defunct) had a headline years ago that said aliens think Earth is a bad neighborhood; to which one might respond that a lot of Earthlings do, too. Related to this is the belief that Earth is under a quarantine enforced by superiorly intelligent aliens who will never let us get out to go to any other planet until we clean up our act here, with the implicit and reasonable expectation that we may exterminate ourselves as a species first. e. e. cummings ended one of his most famous poems with the famous line: “listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go.” Count me in, edward. We can get through the alien blockade by telling them we’re aliens ourselves. Or the blockade may not apply to parallel universes because the lame-brains who’ve gotten us into this mess haven’t figured out how to travel between them. Sadly, neither have I, or I wouldn’t be here.
Browsing the BBC News a few days ago, I ran across the following headline: “Designer vagina trend ‘worrying.’ ” Yes, you read that right. (However, even if you understood it correctly, you may not have read it correctly. Remember that the Brits would read “designer” with the last syllable pronounced –ah, so as to rhyme designer with vagina.) Yes, increasing numbers of women in England are getting cosmetic vaginal surgery—for “aesthetic reasons.” This ranks up there with lunatics who put various pieces of metal in and through their penises. Do these nut-jobs really expect many people to care that much about how their genitals look? Are they going to exhibit themselves or something? Do they think it makes them more sexually attractive? Aren’t we all attracted to guys with rings stuck through their dickheads? Imagine these guys going through airport security. The metal detector goes off near the crotch, and the security scanner looks quizzically at the proudly mutilated traveler. . . . A recent search on types of genital mutilation (don’t ask why I was searching this) turned up some absolutely horrifying examples of what people do to themselves—or sometimes have done to them by others. Enough to keep one awake at night. . . .
Almost every day brings me fresh news to convince me that I don’t belong on this planet. I was left here by some alien civilization as a punishment for some horrible crime I must have committed on my home planet, but I can’t remember what crime or what planet—maybe one of the Galilean moons of Jupiter. (My astrological sign is ruled by Jupiter; isn’t that proof enough?) Earth is to alien intelligent creatures what Australia used to be to Earthlings: a sort of penal colony. The Weekly World News (my former alternative reality source—now defunct) had a headline years ago that said aliens think Earth is a bad neighborhood; to which one might respond that a lot of Earthlings do, too. Related to this is the belief that Earth is under a quarantine enforced by superiorly intelligent aliens who will never let us get out to go to any other planet until we clean up our act here, with the implicit and reasonable expectation that we may exterminate ourselves as a species first. e. e. cummings ended one of his most famous poems with the famous line: “listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go.” Count me in, edward. We can get through the alien blockade by telling them we’re aliens ourselves. Or the blockade may not apply to parallel universes because the lame-brains who’ve gotten us into this mess haven’t figured out how to travel between them. Sadly, neither have I, or I wouldn’t be here.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Dialogue with raving lunatics
In my last post on Muskrat Hunt (“The storm clouds gather,” 9/15), I ended by saying that we should be trying to reach out to the rednecks we’re ridiculing and insulting. Hunt-master Doogman replied that he wasn’t sure how to “reach out” to someone who thinks he should be exterminated, and I replied that I thought this was in many cases a defensive posture because they think that we think that they should be exterminated, and that if we took them seriously and assured them that we'd rather listen to them than exterminate them, they might lower their guns.
It turns out that this was the fatuous blithering of an aging peace-and-love-and-brotherhood hippie, and I got a good, hard slap in the face by the cold, skeletal hand of reality when I reviewed the piece on Bill Moyers’ Journal on 12 September (www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09122008/watch.html), linked on Muskrat Hunt (13 September) as “Excellent Moyers piece on the eliminationist movement.” If I was scared earlier at the idea of McCain/Palin winning in November, I’m far more scared by the realization that many “shock jocks” (a term for the mouth-frothing psychopaths of the ultra-super-hyper-fringe-right who host talk-radio shows) are openly and deliberately inciting their tens of millions of listeners to murder and mayhem in order to promote Christian family values. This is literally true, not a hyperbolic exaggeration: Moyers plays quotes from Glenn Beck in which he admits he wants to kill Michael Moore (ending with the rhetorical question, “Is this wrong?”); from Michael Reagan (son of Ronald) in which he says he’ll pay for the bullets for anyone who wants to shoot 9/11 conspiracy theorists; and from Rush Lamebrain encouraging his rabid followers to deliberately foment riots (“Operation Chaos”) in Denver during the DNC. Clearly, it is as pointlessly futile to try to dialogue rationally with shrieking maniacs whose rage and hatred drive them to such insanity, as it is to try to do so with certifiable schizoids who wander down East Colfax yelling incoherent diatribes at the walls of buildings.
All this is, of course, protected by the First Amendment right of these cockroaches (to use one of their own terms for the people they attack) to free speech. There is the rule (which Moyers attributes to Supreme Court Justice Holmes) against falsely crying “theatre” in a crowded fire, but the shock jocks don’t seem to be bound by this rule. (On the other hand, when the fascist thug-pigs in St Paul brutally and savagely violated the First Amendment rights of journalists to free speech, and of protesters to free assembly, they had the approval and blessing of the Fascistican Party holding their convention there. There is such a thing as selective law enforcement; in fact, there’s really no other kind.) But perhaps even scarier than the fact that these satanic monsters can get away with this, is the fact that countless millions of their listeners let their beliefs and opinions be molded and influenced by them—the same people, doubtless, who think the LaHaye Left behind garbage is a true and accurate portrayal of what the Second Coming will be like and are eagerly looking forward to witnessing it. These are the people who are numerous enough and powerful enough to kick our ass in November, and if we can’t dialogue with them to try to change their “minds,” we have to outnumber them somehow—which is precisely the strategy which the Obama campaigners seem to be following: getting more backers of him from the undecided, rather than trying to convert the die-hard Fascisticans. Why is this coming from someone who said earlier that it didn’t make any real difference who won? Well, now that there’s a good chance that the heroes of the mindless, enraged, hateful rabble who adoringly listen to shock jocks may seize power, I’m beginning to think it may make a difference after all.
By the way: how can I get an audience of tens of millions? Or even just get listed on Rude Pundit’s links? I’ll bet it takes money, dunnit? Anyone have a couple thousand Benjamins they want to give me?
It turns out that this was the fatuous blithering of an aging peace-and-love-and-brotherhood hippie, and I got a good, hard slap in the face by the cold, skeletal hand of reality when I reviewed the piece on Bill Moyers’ Journal on 12 September (www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/09122008/watch.html), linked on Muskrat Hunt (13 September) as “Excellent Moyers piece on the eliminationist movement.” If I was scared earlier at the idea of McCain/Palin winning in November, I’m far more scared by the realization that many “shock jocks” (a term for the mouth-frothing psychopaths of the ultra-super-hyper-fringe-right who host talk-radio shows) are openly and deliberately inciting their tens of millions of listeners to murder and mayhem in order to promote Christian family values. This is literally true, not a hyperbolic exaggeration: Moyers plays quotes from Glenn Beck in which he admits he wants to kill Michael Moore (ending with the rhetorical question, “Is this wrong?”); from Michael Reagan (son of Ronald) in which he says he’ll pay for the bullets for anyone who wants to shoot 9/11 conspiracy theorists; and from Rush Lamebrain encouraging his rabid followers to deliberately foment riots (“Operation Chaos”) in Denver during the DNC. Clearly, it is as pointlessly futile to try to dialogue rationally with shrieking maniacs whose rage and hatred drive them to such insanity, as it is to try to do so with certifiable schizoids who wander down East Colfax yelling incoherent diatribes at the walls of buildings.
All this is, of course, protected by the First Amendment right of these cockroaches (to use one of their own terms for the people they attack) to free speech. There is the rule (which Moyers attributes to Supreme Court Justice Holmes) against falsely crying “theatre” in a crowded fire, but the shock jocks don’t seem to be bound by this rule. (On the other hand, when the fascist thug-pigs in St Paul brutally and savagely violated the First Amendment rights of journalists to free speech, and of protesters to free assembly, they had the approval and blessing of the Fascistican Party holding their convention there. There is such a thing as selective law enforcement; in fact, there’s really no other kind.) But perhaps even scarier than the fact that these satanic monsters can get away with this, is the fact that countless millions of their listeners let their beliefs and opinions be molded and influenced by them—the same people, doubtless, who think the LaHaye Left behind garbage is a true and accurate portrayal of what the Second Coming will be like and are eagerly looking forward to witnessing it. These are the people who are numerous enough and powerful enough to kick our ass in November, and if we can’t dialogue with them to try to change their “minds,” we have to outnumber them somehow—which is precisely the strategy which the Obama campaigners seem to be following: getting more backers of him from the undecided, rather than trying to convert the die-hard Fascisticans. Why is this coming from someone who said earlier that it didn’t make any real difference who won? Well, now that there’s a good chance that the heroes of the mindless, enraged, hateful rabble who adoringly listen to shock jocks may seize power, I’m beginning to think it may make a difference after all.
By the way: how can I get an audience of tens of millions? Or even just get listed on Rude Pundit’s links? I’ll bet it takes money, dunnit? Anyone have a couple thousand Benjamins they want to give me?
Monday, September 15, 2008
The storm clouds gather
I’m getting truly scared. I’m too old and poor to emigrate to Canada, but I’m terrified at the idea of having to continue living in this country after next January.
To begin with, let me emphasize that I pay little or no attention to the coverage of the campaign by the mainstream domestic media. I’ve been reading the coverage by BBC, and it’s blood-chilling. I’ve also been reading lots of liberal-progressive blogs (mostly Muskrat Hunt and The Rude Pundit). And what terrifies me is that, in spite of all the ridicule and invective piled on McCain and Palin by the left, and in spite of mounting news coverage that makes it clear that Palin is a total disaster and the Republicans should be floundering helplessly in their death throes, some of the polls which BBC tracks (based, of course, on American pollsters) show that McCain-Palin are either neck-in-neck with Obama-Biden or edging past them. One commentator says we have no one but ourselves to blame for showing so poorly because the Democrats are not doing what he thinks they should be doing to look better. It’s useless to point fingers, but obviously we’re doing something wrong, and somebody had better figure out what it is and correct it really fast. And posting attacks on Palin in leftist blogs isn’t going to do it. We’re talking to ourselves instead of to the people whose opinions we should be trying to change. The left is often accused of being narcissistic as well as elitist—just the kind of people the gun-toting, Bible-thumping rednecks loathe. They may be inarticulate and ignorant, but they’re powerful, and we’re stupid to ridicule and insult them instead of trying to reach out to them. Our ridicule and insults just more firmly convince them that they’re right.
Granted, a lot can happen in seven weeks. The trouble is, it seems to me, as a confirmed pessimist, that most of it will be bad.
To begin with, let me emphasize that I pay little or no attention to the coverage of the campaign by the mainstream domestic media. I’ve been reading the coverage by BBC, and it’s blood-chilling. I’ve also been reading lots of liberal-progressive blogs (mostly Muskrat Hunt and The Rude Pundit). And what terrifies me is that, in spite of all the ridicule and invective piled on McCain and Palin by the left, and in spite of mounting news coverage that makes it clear that Palin is a total disaster and the Republicans should be floundering helplessly in their death throes, some of the polls which BBC tracks (based, of course, on American pollsters) show that McCain-Palin are either neck-in-neck with Obama-Biden or edging past them. One commentator says we have no one but ourselves to blame for showing so poorly because the Democrats are not doing what he thinks they should be doing to look better. It’s useless to point fingers, but obviously we’re doing something wrong, and somebody had better figure out what it is and correct it really fast. And posting attacks on Palin in leftist blogs isn’t going to do it. We’re talking to ourselves instead of to the people whose opinions we should be trying to change. The left is often accused of being narcissistic as well as elitist—just the kind of people the gun-toting, Bible-thumping rednecks loathe. They may be inarticulate and ignorant, but they’re powerful, and we’re stupid to ridicule and insult them instead of trying to reach out to them. Our ridicule and insults just more firmly convince them that they’re right.
Granted, a lot can happen in seven weeks. The trouble is, it seems to me, as a confirmed pessimist, that most of it will be bad.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Who cares? It's all lies.
I don’t know why I care as much as I seem to about this sodding campaign—care enough, at least, to express my opinions about it. I entirely agree with Bageant that it really doesn’t matter which branch of the Republicrat Party occupies the throne. Business will proceed as usual regardless of which one it is because business will continue to be run as usual behind the scenes (and more and more these days right out in plain view) by the corporate masters who own the government. They may not be in total control of the government on social issues, such as gender issues, abortion, and immigration, but they’re in total control of anything that involves money, and nowadays there aren’t many issues that don’t involve money. Health care? Controlled by Big Drugs and the insurance racket. Fuel costs, energy conservation, and renewable sources? Controlled by Big Fossil Fuels. The Iraq/Afghanistan war (or any other war, for that matter)? Controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex. Education? Controlled to a surprising extent by publishers of schoolbooks. Employment and the economy in general? Controlled by the whole vicious cabal, which is supposedly legitimized by the priesthood of economists, who practice the most lame-brained hodgepodge of meaningless mumbo-jumbo, psychotic fantasies, and muddled and illogical bullshit ever to be called a “science.” All of it controlled by the plutocrats who pull the strings of the puppets they prop up as a façade. So, all this inspiring blather about “change” is so much farting in the wind, and the people who are indulging in it probably know it. McLame certainly knows it, and is cynical and mendacious in even talking about it. Obama probably knows it but may be naïve enough to think he can change the system; I can hardly accuse him of being cynical and mendacious. On the other hand, I hate to think he’s that naïve. Take your pick. His alleged inexperience, which his opponents use as a cudgel, hatchet, and blunderbuss against him, is, in my opinion, one of his greatest virtues, even though it may the reason for his naiveté. “Experience” basically means experience in working with the plutocrats, which invariably makes one cynical and corrupt. McLame, of course, has lots of experience and a “track record.” Boy, does he ever! Don’t look too closely at his experience unless you have a barf-bucket close at hand.
So, who cares who wins? What real, fundamental difference will it make? I hate to say it, but I don’t think even the Great Brown Hope will be able to make any, not because of his inexperience but because the plutocratic cabal will keep him from doing so and will impede and frustrate his every move in that direction; and if he gets uppity, they’ll disembowel him and eat his entrails while he’s still alive, like African jackals do with their prey. (And then there’s always the threat of assassination.) So, when I call those who promulgate the rhetoric of change mendacious, that’s just a euphemism for lying. They’re all lying liars, to quote Al Franken. Obama may be more or less sincere, out of naiveté, when he talks about what he intends or hopes to do, but when it comes to the Republican attacks on him, and their defense of their own records and agendas, the air becomes heavy with the smell of shit. Muskrat Hunt has at least two posts in which major news media frankly and repeatedly use the terms lies and lying (MSNBC’s “Countdown” in “Debunking McCain” and “Talking Points Memo” [focusing specifically on Palin] in “McCain/Palin = Bush/Cheney”). If the Elephants suffered the Pinocchio syndrome, they couldn’t move without stabbing each other with their noses. And a note of farce enters the comedy when the opponents accuse each other of lying about their lies: “You’re a liar when you call me a liar!” “You’re a liar when you deny lying!” And since I don’t believe anything any of them say, I refuse to listen to them. When their propaganda pops up on the cyclopean mind-controller, I change the channel; and when every channel is broadcasting their lies at the same time, I just switch it off.
The one exception, ironically, is the TV ad for Marilyn Musgrave. Precisely because she’s the target of Muskrat Hunt, I couldn’t help being curious about what the object of so much invective could have to say in her defense. It’s a real tearjerker. “Secondhand clothes, and meals from a Salvation Army. A childhood devastated by a father’s alcoholism. Marilyn Musgrave knows about hard times, because she’s lived them. [All this voiced over pictures of sad, crying children.] Today, you’ll find Marilyn helping the homeless [footage of her doing housing construction], the hungry [footage of her working in a soup kitchen], the broken and battered [footage of her counseling a woman in what may be a safe house]. In Congress, Marilyn stands for what’s right [—for the rich and powerful], working with Democrats and Republicans to oppose the President’s cuts to Medicare and veterans.” I don’t know enough about her record to know how much of this is lies, but my guess would be, most of it; and the inspirational footage is obviously posed for the occasion. But remember, the Russians thought Stalin was their savior because he controlled the image of himself portrayed by the media. They can all be assumed to be lying. Always.
So, who cares who wins? What real, fundamental difference will it make? I hate to say it, but I don’t think even the Great Brown Hope will be able to make any, not because of his inexperience but because the plutocratic cabal will keep him from doing so and will impede and frustrate his every move in that direction; and if he gets uppity, they’ll disembowel him and eat his entrails while he’s still alive, like African jackals do with their prey. (And then there’s always the threat of assassination.) So, when I call those who promulgate the rhetoric of change mendacious, that’s just a euphemism for lying. They’re all lying liars, to quote Al Franken. Obama may be more or less sincere, out of naiveté, when he talks about what he intends or hopes to do, but when it comes to the Republican attacks on him, and their defense of their own records and agendas, the air becomes heavy with the smell of shit. Muskrat Hunt has at least two posts in which major news media frankly and repeatedly use the terms lies and lying (MSNBC’s “Countdown” in “Debunking McCain” and “Talking Points Memo” [focusing specifically on Palin] in “McCain/Palin = Bush/Cheney”). If the Elephants suffered the Pinocchio syndrome, they couldn’t move without stabbing each other with their noses. And a note of farce enters the comedy when the opponents accuse each other of lying about their lies: “You’re a liar when you call me a liar!” “You’re a liar when you deny lying!” And since I don’t believe anything any of them say, I refuse to listen to them. When their propaganda pops up on the cyclopean mind-controller, I change the channel; and when every channel is broadcasting their lies at the same time, I just switch it off.
The one exception, ironically, is the TV ad for Marilyn Musgrave. Precisely because she’s the target of Muskrat Hunt, I couldn’t help being curious about what the object of so much invective could have to say in her defense. It’s a real tearjerker. “Secondhand clothes, and meals from a Salvation Army. A childhood devastated by a father’s alcoholism. Marilyn Musgrave knows about hard times, because she’s lived them. [All this voiced over pictures of sad, crying children.] Today, you’ll find Marilyn helping the homeless [footage of her doing housing construction], the hungry [footage of her working in a soup kitchen], the broken and battered [footage of her counseling a woman in what may be a safe house]. In Congress, Marilyn stands for what’s right [—for the rich and powerful], working with Democrats and Republicans to oppose the President’s cuts to Medicare and veterans.” I don’t know enough about her record to know how much of this is lies, but my guess would be, most of it; and the inspirational footage is obviously posed for the occasion. But remember, the Russians thought Stalin was their savior because he controlled the image of himself portrayed by the media. They can all be assumed to be lying. Always.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Whither will they Rove?
I think we should be very worried about the report that Karl Rove seems to have taken control of McLame’s campaign. This monster was the architect of some the most viciously evil schemes of the Bush empire before he deserted what he doubtless realized was (because of him, of course) a sinking ship, and he seems to have an uncanny knack for convincing people that Hitler was just a kindly little Sunday school teacher and Stalin was a sadly misunderstood industrial visionary. This guy could sell cyanide to Hostess Cakes, the makers of Twinkies, as a new baking ingredient, and rumor has it that he may have had a hand in picking the Alaskan Beauty Queen as McLame’s staggering mate. If so, it may not be as moronically self-destructive as we think and hope, but may be part of another Rove-ian plot which will work precisely because it appears so stupid. His Machiavellian machinations are going to add a new factor to the equation, which may shift, and seems already to be shifting, the balance of opinion. We were scared of this creature when he was in center stage, and we should be even more scared of him now that he’s behind the scenes. Pure evil once again slithers through the sewers of Republican power.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)